We lined up like this: Blanco Edinho -Scocco Rikka Pilatsikas Basinas Juanfran -Ramos-Silva Krygiakos Majstorovisc Saja Lagos went in for Edinho in the 65th, Kafes went in for Pilatsikas in the 87th, and Alexopolous went in for Scocco in the 90th. Donis knows what he is doing. The 4-3-3 worked well for us. Click to continue reading...

AEK is up 2-0 to a Panathinaikos side that is unable to assert itself. AEK's secret weapon? Edinho, Edinho, Edinho. He's been ripping down the left flank, cutting into the box, laying off passes to Blanco, winning corners and drawing fouls. He scored on a solo effort in the 20th minute [...] Click to continue reading...

Eddie Lewis was passing through the Galaxy locker room, his head stitched up from where he'd sustained a cut in the match versus Guatemala. Back in the pressbox, one of the reporters brought up Eddie's age and wondered about his durability in the rough and tumble world of MLS. I pointed out that Brian McBride was older. Click to continue reading...

AEK finished their final friendly with a victory after going down 0-1 in the first half. The starting lineupfor AEK's final game before the critical match against Omonia included Jurgen Macho and Edinho, both of whom have not played with team for quite a while now. The game overall was a definate imprpovement over past games, [. Click to continue reading...

They both played Wednesday, both a manageable distance away and both will be at Home Depot Center tonight.

But who stands a better chance of playing - Chicago's Cuauhtemoc Blanco or the Galaxy's Landon Donovan?

We know David Beckham won't be there. He's off in China for the Olympics closing ceremony. Click to continue reading...

Back on track.  Playing without many of our starters due to their respective national team call-ups, AEK played a solid 90 minutes of football, lifting themselves up from their sluggish performance last week against Omonia.  There was more of the nice one-touch passing we saw glimpses of in the Omonia match but better finishing this [. Click to continue reading...

Something to read while you send a friend request to the oldest person on Facebook... New Bundesliga stars for a new Bundesliga season (Bild) Fabio Capello. In his pants. That'll teach him (Aston Villa Offside) Beginners guide to Celtic (Inside Left) David Bentley's 1940s haircut (A More Splendid Life) The Dutch need their own Messi (Netherlands WCB) The pros and cons [. Click to continue reading...

I know I said we should just pretend this never happened, but then I saw a statistic showing we had the majority of possession.  I also found some video clips that I think are worth sharing: That isn't a horrible performance, is it?  Sure, we lost.  But the offense showed some really nice one-touch passing. Click to continue reading...

So I just watched the Revolution drop a 1 nil lead to the Chicago Fire and lose 2-1. Terrible I know, but more terrible because it had to come on the same night as Taylor Twellman's return. Twellman, in my eyes looked good in his return while netting the only goal for the Revs. When [...] Click to continue reading...

Alex is off on vacation and I've been busy at work, on my amatuer team AEK Baltimore (three games in three days) and nursing a nasty case of Athletic Pubalgia, so we've let the blog slide a few days. My apologies. The news has really started to pile up. AEK destroyed Turkish-side Ancaragucu on Sunday in Austria. Click to continue reading...

I don't mean weak in the aspect of the discipline handed down. Two years is a pretty solid sentence. But U.S. Soccer wimped out.
I'll highlight the part that is especially crucial: "The suspension is due to his actions during the U.S. Open Cup match between the Chicago Fire and D.C. United on July 8, 2008. Click to continue reading...

(I've been gone awhile. I may talk about it later. For now, we stick to the football.)

In week 4, this would have seemed a pretty solid result. Now, though - eeugh. That was some ugly sheet, mang.

Not ugly from a technique standpoint, really. The passing in MLS can surprise me sometimes now, and the quality of the balls Conde and Segares (from one end) and Conrad (from the other) were serving up made it look like these teams were actually, honestly playing long-ball, and not just hoofing the damned thing every chance they got.

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AEK ended their second friendly of the preseason against German Second Division team Greuther Furth in a 2-2 draw. AEK went down early on in the first minute and by the end of the scond half they were down 0-2. Two goals however, in the 83rd and 85th minutes of the game allowed AEK to catch [...] Click to continue reading...

An interesting move by the Chicago Fire as they acquire the rights to Brian McBride from Toronto F.C. The Fire won't actually get to have McBride play for them until after the Olympic games are over, but that will serve as a good way to get him into game shape and ready for the stretch run and the playoffs. Click to continue reading...

So I talked to a U.S. Soccer honcho about Cuauhtemoc Blanco's outburst at the U.S. Open Cup.
I wanted to know why there hadn't been any news about disciplinary measures yet. Turns out, the committee to deal with the matter hasn't even met yet. They'll decide the case in August, apparently. There's no rush to act, I was told, since the Fire is out of the Cup and any censure would only affect next year's tournament. Click to continue reading...

This kind of snuck up on us, didn't it? Last season finished, there was a bit of transfer news, then the Euro 2008 tournament, then very little, just the long-expected departure of Lyberopoulos. So we searched for match reports of the U-19s to get a glimpse of Pavlis or Papastathopoulos, clicked over to footballshirtculture. Click to continue reading...

The first XI for the 2008 MLS All Star game was announced. This isn't necessairly the starting lineup - coach Nicol will decide who starts. These are just the first 11 guys named to the team. If it were the starting lineup it would look something like this:

Donovan - Cooper

Rogers

Kljestan - Blanco - Joseph - Beckham

Parkhurst - Conrad - Hejduk

Reis

What other players do you think will be added to the team?

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Of course I didn't see the Blanco/DC Open Cup incident. I was here in California, and the match wasn't televised. I also wasn't enterprising enough to look for an Internet stream, if there was one. So when Brad Feldman brought the topic up, I had only contextual points to make.

1. Blanco arrived in the league with a reputation of not only skill, but a tempestuous personality. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday evening, AEK held a practise which was open to the fans to go and watch. The team practised for about two hours. They first did various exercises such as heading the ball and ball control exercises. They then did a passing exercise for about twenty minutes. At the end, for about half an hour [. Click to continue reading...

Making a cancer kid's dream come true. Kudos to the Fire, Houston Dynamo and especially Cuauh himself.

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"The story of the blind man" has as the main punchline Blanco changing his sign from "I'm blind, have compassion" to "They offered me work as a ref, but I prefer to be an honest beggar." A former MLS player makes a cameo - who can name him?

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Temoc needs a presser. Seriously - in Los Angeles, Blanco is at least as big a draw as Beckham, if not bigger, so there really needed to be a better way for the reporters crowding into the visitors locker room to get quotes.

Translation is difficult in that situation. In a press conference, it's more organized, and there can be a more equal distribution of questions as well, rather than only the pushy reporters (we're not all like that) getting to have a say. Click to continue reading...

I think week 11 was one of the more memorably weekends in the 2008 season. It was a long and stretched out week with games every night from Wednesday all the way to Sunday. Thought that Wednesday night game was washed out in DC, it showed us something that this was going to be one [...] Click to continue reading...

Another month down here in Major League Soccer, but yes I know there is still one day left on the calendar with games on it. But for the most part this list is basically going to be fine no matter what happens tomorrow. Even if someone drops six goals in a game tomorrow, it really [...] Click to continue reading...

The latest issue of Futbol Mundial includes a season overview and a feature on Chicago's main man. Click to continue reading...