For the fourth time since 2010, Sporting Kansas City has given up a late goal that has cost them a result of some kind against the Seattle Sounders. A goal in the 94th minute by Djimi Traore gave the Sounders a 1-0 win at Sporting Park, keeping Seattle unbeaten in Kansas City since the Sounders came into the league.
The Portland Timbers head out for another road match this weekend when they visit Sporting Park for a date with Sporting Kansas City. Because of the unbalanced schedule, the teams have only met three times in regular season MLS matches, but the 2012 match in Portland was memorable for many reasons.
Sporting KC's undefeated run and shutout streak ended in grand fashion for KC last night in Los Angeles against the LA Galaxy. Two counter attacking goals by the Galaxy were enough to send KC home from their coast to coast road trip with a 2-0 loss to the defender champs.
KC came out and started the same 11 that took the field three days earlier against the New York Red Bulls.
On a night when returning U.S. Men's National team standouts Graham Zusi and Matt Besler turned in outstanding showings just days after playing key parts in the U.S. team's tie vs. Mexico, it might have been easy to overlook the impressive night of their World Cup veteran teammate.
Last night was the Sporting Kansas City team that people had hoped to see from the start of the season. There was possession, the attack flowed, and there were plenty of chances. And in the end KC got the result they deserved, handing the Montreal Impact their first loss of the season and ending their own goalless drought while keeping their shutout streak going.
When Sporting Kansas City traded for Benny Feilhaber this past offseason, they did so with the hopes of landing a central midfielder who was capable of dictating the tempo of games and unlocking defenses.
On Saturday night, Feilhaber lived up to that billing.
Former Revolution midfielder Benny Feilhaber returned to Gilette Stadium on Saturday. (Photo: Chris Aduama/aduama.com)
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. In addition to keeping the scoreboard on standby, the blustery conditions at Gillette Stadiumalso put a damper on the return ofex-Revolution midfielder Benny Feilhaber.
Revolution midfielder Ryan Guy came on in the second half to spell Chad Barrett in Saturday's 0-0 draw against Sporting K.C. (Photo: Chris Aduama/aduama.com)
By Kevin Koczwara
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Physicality has been Sporting Kansas City's calling card since Peter Vermes took over as head coach in 2008, and there was no shortage of it in their 0-0 draw with the New England Revolution on Saturday night.
After 4 weeks, the New England Revolution will finally open their home account this afternoon against Eastern Conference rivals Sporting Kansas CIty. While the Revs are missing a pivotal cog in Jerry Bengtson who is on duty with the Honduras national team, KC is also missing some important players in midfielder Graham Zusi and defender Matt Besler, who are both with the United States national team for their World Cup Qualifying games against Costa Rica and Mexico.
Benny Feilhaber, shown here in pre-game apparel last summer, knows it'll be a different feeling coming back to Gillette Stadium as a guest on Saturday. (Photo: Kari Heistad)
Benny Feilhaber isn't going to lie: Saturday's return to Gillette Stadium is going to feel "a little funny."
Not necessarily the game itself, which will pit him and his current Sporting Kansas City teammates against a number of his former New England Revolution teammates.
The New England Revolution return home for their home opener on Saturday as they host Sporting Kansas who are 1-1-1 on the season. Despite World Cup qualifiers taking place this weekend, the MLS still has scheduled games, which means that the Recs will be without Jerry Bengtson and SKC will be missing Graham Zusi and Matt Besler.
With U.S. MNT training camp starting in a little more than a week, all eyes are on the players in the pool vying for spots for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers. With loads of games being shown this weekend, you can see for yourself ...
PSP's Eastern Conference preview looks at each club and how the Union match up against them. In the end, PSP picks Michael Farfan and the Union to finish ... well, click on to read more.
Jurgen Klinsmann has called in 25 players ahead of the January camp roster, a squad heavy on MLS talent.
Eddie Johnson and Graham Zusi headline a squad with 21 MLS players.The Houston Dynamo trio of Will Bruin, Brad Davis and Tally Hall were among the players called in, as were USMNT veterans Benny Feilhaber and young playmaker Mix Diskerud.
You can now add Roger Espinoza to the list of Major League Soccer alumni to make moves to top European leagues.
The Honduran national team midfielder and former Sporting Kansas City standout was granted his UK work permit on Monday, clearing the way for his free transfer to English Premier League side Wigan Athletic.
Sporting KC is set to announce the clubs 4th ever designated player tomorrow at 1pm on their Youtube channel. The announcement continues a whirlwind few weeks for the club that's seen them bring in 4 new players already (Josh Gardner, Benny Feilhaber, Ike Opara, and Yann Songo'o) and re-sign fan favorite Matt Besler.
Benny Feilhaber was shipped to Sporting KC after two disappointing seasons in New England. (Photo: Kari Heistad/CapturedImages.biz)
Breaking up is hard to do.
Less than two years ago, Benny Feilhaber's gift-wrapped arrival in Foxboro had many believing that the creative midfielder would help lead the club back to the postseason.
U.S. national team midfielder Benny Feilhaber was traded from the New England Revolution to Sporting Kansas City on Tuesday. In return, New England will receive allocation money, a first-round pick in the 2014 SuperDraft and a second-round pick in the [...]
The post NE Trades Feilhaber to Sporting Kansas City appeared first on Soccer Perspectives.
Sporting KC's announcement hinted at by Robb Heineman yesterday on Twitter has been announced. The team has acquired midfielder, Benny Feilhaber from the New England Revolution for allocation money, KC's 2014 first round pick, and their 2015 first round pick.
The midfielder spent the last season and a half in New England after spending most of the previous 7 years playing in Germany, England, and Denmark.
Benny Feilhaber started his 50th MLS league game of his career.
In the 56th minute, Jimmy Neilsen moved past Roger Espinoza and into 19th place for minutes played in all competitions. Nielsen finished the game with 9,637 minutes played.
Nielsen made his 107th start in all competitions, breaking his tie with Espinoza for 18th place on that list.
Only two days separate the release of Jurgen Klinsmann's roster prior to their match against Honduras. 24 have been called in to the World Cup qualifier and of the 24, seven are representatives of Major League Soccer. As is often the case, there were some surprises among the names called to represent the United States in San Pedro Sula.
If the North American Soccer Reporters are correct, the New England Revolution are in for another disappointing season in 2013. Members of the NASR, a unified group of North American soccer journalists, selected the Revolution to finish ninth in the Eastern Conference for the second season in a row.
The 2013 Desert Diamond Cup in Tucson is the third edition of the preseason tournament, the second to exclusively feature MLS teams, and the first to include the Seattle Sounders. Play kicks off tonight when Seattle takes on the New England Revolution. Here's a little look at the other participants, what they've been up to since last season, and what we might see from them over the next week.
It's been so long since I've written something for the blog I'm not even going to try to justify it. In a much overused phrase in my vocabulary plainly states: it is what it is.
But what, then motivated me tonight to clack away at the keyboard when there are plenty of other worthwhile things to be doing (not the least of which would be catching up on sleep).
Revolution head coach Jay Heaps will need veterans like Matt Reis (left) to help steer the club toward the postseason in 2013.(Photo: Kari Heistad/CapturedImages.biz)
This year's theme to the Revolution's off-season acquisitions has been experience. Last year, 21 of the club's players had less than two years' experience playing in MLS.
With Kei Kamara's departure for Norwich for at least the first 10 games of the MLS season, there's a hole to fill not only on the right wing, but offensively.
First, let's just get it out of the way, you can't just replace Kamara. No one on KC's roster at this time plays the same style and the same way that Kamara does.
In a game that did a good job of putting people to sleep, and is thankfully being overshadowed by bigger KC news today, the US played to a 0-0 draw with Canada last night in Houston. It's the second time in about a year that the US and Canada have played to a very lack luster 0-0 draw. Last year it was in Toronto that the two teams looked uninterested in scoring.
Here's your game thread for the USMNT vs Canada tonight.
Here's your starting lineups.
USMNT
GK: Sean Johnson D: Justin Morrow, Matt Besler, Omar Gonzalez, Tony Beltran M: Brad Evans, Kyle Beckerman (captain), Graham Zusi, Brad Davis F: Chris Wondolowski, Eddie Johnson
Bench: Joshua Gatt, Alejandro Bedoya, Bill Hamid, Juan Agudelo, Benny Feilhaber, Alfredo Morales, Will Bruin
Canada
GK: Simon Thomas D: Nikolas Ledgerwood, Dejan Jakovic, Ashtone Morgan, Nana Attakora M: Tosaint Anthony Ricketts, Terry Dunfield, Kyle Bekker, Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault, Russel Teibert F: Dwayne De Rosario
Jurgen Klinsmann announced his call ups for the January "Camp Cupcake" beginning Monday in Carson, California. Three Sporting KC players were named to the roster, Matt Besler, Benny Feilhaber, and Graham Zusi.
Zusi was already expected to be there after the announcement that he'd be joining the camp late due to his training session with West Ham that he is doing this week.
The triumphant return!Orange Slices is our game day, catch-all post that we update during the day before and day of the match.
It's a game that means little for everyone but some of the participants. The true challenge for the USMNT on the Road to Brazil 2014 begins next week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Benny Feilhaber in 2010 was a great player. He saw regular time on Bob Bradley's USMNT squad and saw minutes in the US' last three matches in the 2010 World Cup. The future looked as bright for Benny. Opting to come to the US when his contract expired in Denmark should have been our first indication that Benny was not a "great" player, but rather a really good player.
Benny Feilhaber was the top Fantasy Player last week when he earned 13 points for all the managers who had him on their team. I was not one of them but hopefully some of you had him on your team. The last several rounds have not been as kind to our league's top 10 compared to the first few rounds but overall our league is still a strong league.
U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has one more weekend to size up the form of players before he gets his own look in Denver. Between the huge game for Brad Guzan and Aston Villa against Queens Park Rangers and MLS rivarly week, the MNT guys have a lot on their plate ahead of the big World Cup qualifiers against Costa Rica and Mexico.
Just two days after CONCACAF announced that the 2013 Gold Cup would open at the Rose Bowl with the Mexican National Team, sources have confirmed to SBI that the 2013 Gold Cup Final will take place at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Soldier Field hosted the 2007 Gold Cup Final won by the United States (which defeated Mexico thanks to Benny Feilhaber's memorable game-winning goal).
With the draft taking place in Indianapolis tomorrow afternoon, you can certainly feel the sense of excitement as the 2013 MLS season draws ever closer.
Perhaps a subject just as exciting is the current state, and potential, of the Revolution midfield. The Revs enter the new season with a little bit of everything in their midfield: youth, experience, pace, power, and even a little bit of attitude.
