QUESTION ON MY MIND
So who is joining me in Chicago on Saturday for the Fire game against New England? How many times have I seen these two duke it out? Like old timey boxing? Can't wait! See you there!
STARTERS
Real Salt Lake followed New York's lead from last year and knocked the defending MLS Cup winners out of the playoffs in the first round. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
DC United announced that head coach Tom Soehn has resigned, so the team now join New York, Kansas City and Toronto in the hunt for a new leader.
MLS PLAYOFF NEWS
It was great to see that New England had scrubbed their field of all football lines for Sunday's game. Click to continue reading...

QUESTION ON MY MIND
Will we ever know what happened in the Charlie Davies car accident? Who was driving? How did the crash occur? What was he doing out past 3am? Maybe he had special dispensation from the coach to be out late. Who knows.
Maybe this info is too private, but I know that these are things the fans would like to read about. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Michael Lewis of Big Apple Soccer reports that Red Bull New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio has resigned. His assistant Richie Williams will once again be at the wheel of the company truck.
MLS
Do you think Houston got a talented player in Luis Landin? Click to continue reading...

At least, that's what my mom always tells me, mostly because I married a guy whose surname is Toole. But it's true--soccer fans, use the right tools for the job. In this case, the job is banner construction.
Hi, my name's Prairie, and I make banners. What started out as a way to spruce things up around the games at Gillette Stadium turned into a hobby and now sort of a freelance job. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Frank Dell'apa who covers soccer in our country as well as anyone over the past 20 years has started a blog, Soccer Confidential, to help us all keep tabs on the interesting stuff that only he can dig up. I love it. Welcome to blogland Frank. (Dell'apa's main gig was with the Boston Globe, where last year he was removed from the soccer beat to cover the Boston Celtics NBA team. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
So word has it that the upcoming HUUUGE Mexico v USA World Cup qualifier will not be shown on a channel that 99% of us fans can get. Telemundo owns the rights to all games from Mexico, and their plan is to broadcast it in English on a spin-off channel they have called Mun2. Click to continue reading...

EXTRA SPECIAL STARTERS
Love Is In The Air!
Our friend Jeremy Olson aka DigitalGopher caught the Montreal Impact in full meltdown mode last Saturday night during a 3-0 loss to our Minnesota Thunder. Click to continue reading...

And the hits just keep on comin'. While I am still (eagerly) awaiting the arrival of my review copy of Grant Wahl's ‘The Beckham Experiment,' I was sent the link to a story published in today's Boston Globe regarding The Golden One's reaction to time he spent at a local hotel. According to the story, Old Spice was appalled by the deplorable conditions that greeted him when the team arrived at the Sheraton Braintree Hotel, located just outside of Boston, for an away game against the New England Revolution. Click to continue reading...

Americans Abroad / USMNT
European Clubs Eyeing Clark And Davies - Soccer By Ives
Davies Evaluates Tournament, Future - Yanks Abroad
Castillo For USA? - Soccer Insider
An Attempt At Perspective - Match Fit USA
Soccer May Just Have Arrived In America - Corner Kicks (Boston Globe)
An American Fan's View From Baghdad - Goal (NY Times)
Castillo: 'I Would Play For The United States' - USSoccerPlayers. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Landon Donovan On if the USA's run in the tournament gained respect for U.S. Soccer: "... we're at the point where we don't want respect, we want to win."
CONFEDERATIONS CUP SOUTH AFRICA 2009
Final match:
-Sun Jun 28
USA 2-3 Brazil - USA goals by Clint Dempsey & Landon Donovan. Click to continue reading...

Ok, so the United States gave Brazil all it could handle in the 2009 Confederations Cup final, falling to the 5-time World Cup champions, 3-2.
But what does it really mean?
According to the Boston Globe's Mark Stokes, this final could be the match that pushes soccer into the forefront of American sports. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Bernardo Fallas of the Houston Chronicle says that MLS order the Houston Dynamo media department to change credit on a goal last weekend from a Bobby Boswell Own Goal to a Fabian Espindola goal. If this is true it's totally bogus.
TEAM USA - CONFEDERATIONS CUP
See you on Wednesday afternoon at the Sweetwater to watch the Semifinal miracle game for the USA. Click to continue reading...

USA 3 : 0 Egypt
USA 3, Egypt 0: The Highlights - Soccer By Ives
Against All Odds, U.S. Reaches Confederations Semis - Soccer y Futbol
Glory! Egypt 0 : 3 United States - Prost Amerika
Davies: US Victory Satisfying - Yanks Abroad
US Advances To Confederations Cup Semis - Associated Press
Heart & Passion Finally Came Back To Advance Into The Semis - MLS Talk
USA 3 - 0 Egypt: A Few Thoughts - MLS Daily
Houdini Lives. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Thursday morning, USA v Brazil, at 8:55am Central time. Where will you be watching? I will be at the Sweetwater as usual. See you there. (location details in the right hand column) Please come say hi!
dN
Wow! Am I a dumbass or what? Yesterday I made a little fuss over the fact that 4 MLS teams have this coming weekend off. Click to continue reading...

It's hard to believe, perhaps, but tonight D.C. United wraps up its regular season series with the New England Revolution - just 12 games into the 2009 League campaign. D.C. stole points at home back on April 17 thanks to a goal in extra time from Ben Olsen, resulting in a 1-1 draw. Tonight, the Black-and-Red will be without #14, however, as he is still recovering from a hamstring strain, while Christian Gomez was also left behind due to an injury (bruised toe) suffered in last week's game against Real Salt Lake.

Click to continue reading...

It is not uncommon for a coach to be fined for comments made about officiating, but when you see why Tony DiCicco was fined the other day, it certainly seems like the WPS is walking the line with disciplining a coach who didn't say anything over the top.
The WPS Disciplinary Committee fined Boston Breakers coach Tony DiCicco $750 for comments after the game that had "an effect prejudicial and detrimental to WPS including public criticism of game officials and WPS officiating generally. Click to continue reading...

Tonight, D.C. United faces the New England Revolution for the first time in 2009. The game is set to kickoff at 7 p.m. ET at RFK Stadium and will be broadcast on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes. You can listen on the radio in English (1050 AM) or in Spanish (730 AM).

The coaching staff will have a difficult task ahead of them this evening, as nearly every player on the 24-man roster is available.

Click to continue reading...

Sounds ominous, I now ... but I'm just talking about the beginning of the end of the month, here.  It's been a frozen, snowy January - in fact I can't remember the last time I saw bare ground here in NH.  Not that I'm complaining.  So long as it's mostly snow (as opposed to ice) [...] Click to continue reading...

The Boston Globe says that the Revs have allowed Seattle Sounders management to talk to current NE assistant Paul Mariner. I've been surprised for while now that he has stuck around at Foxboro rather than strike off on his own. It looks like the Sounders have solid (and experienced) management and strong financial backing which [. Click to continue reading...

Queue the jokes about the Seattle Mariners....
This tidbit comes to us courtesy of the Boston Globe:

Seattle Sounders FC received permission from Revolution director of soccer Mike Burns to talk to assistant coach Paul Mariner about its head coaching position, a league source confirmed last night.

Click to continue reading...

A terribly embarrassing night for MLS in the CONCACAF Champions League. New England was assaulted 0-4 at home by Joe Public, and Chivas USA was held 1-1 at home by Tauro. It was really ugly, especially at Foxborough. There will be a lot of excuses flying today. And they all fall short of those scorelines. Click to continue reading...

653 days to till the World Cup
~and~
Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated looks back at the Olympics: "(Kobe) Bryant has been following soccer closely in Beijing, attending at least three different games. When he went to the Brazil-Argentina men's semifinal he even sat in the common-man seats instead of the VIP section. Click to continue reading...

Germany-Japan are underway and Japan is looking goo so far (17th minute). meanwhile, I can't imagine what the USWNT must be feeling right now. Hopefully they are focused and confident. Their making it to the gold medal match is a wonderful accomplishment and, at the very least, has brought the eyes [. Click to continue reading...

Two big games in five days. Against two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. Both of whom are ahead of United in the table.

After a 1-0 win over the Chicago Fire on Saturday, United looks toward big game number two this evening against the second place Revolution. Last week, the guys topped a Revolution team made up almost entirely of reserves 3-1 in the U.

Click to continue reading...

After a disappointing loss Sunday night in New Jersey, the guys are looking forward to tonight's important match with the New England Revolution. Tonight's game at RFK Stadium kicks off at 7:30 p.m. (ET) and it is not being televised - so get yourself to the stadium! If you absolutely can't make it, it will be available on the radio in both English (1050 AM) and Spanish (1540 AM) and streaming live on dcunited.

Click to continue reading...

Corey Ashe cracked his Penalty Kick off the crossbar and New England went nuts for the SuperLiga title. The game ended 1-1 after 90 minutes, and then both teams scored in 30 minutes of extra time to end 2-2. Houston scored first both times, but it was not enough in 120 minutes. So we went to Penalty Kicks and the Revs took it 6-5 in eight rounds. Click to continue reading...

SuperLiga
FINAL TONIGHT!
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Official website
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Final
-Tue Aug 5
New England v Houston - 7pm central on TeleFutura
Match preview by Steve Davis at Soccernet.
Match preview by Monique Walker of the Boston Globe. Click to continue reading...

I'm back from my quick road trip ... which was very successful and included a drive through the Delaware Water Gap region - an area I haven't visited in years. It was quite beautiful - more so than I remembered (from driving through in my childhood). Much of it has been reclaimed as [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

The US Soccer store is having a clearance sale. Lots of goodies for cheap!
~and~
Our FIS (Friend In Soccer) Greg Seltzer has launched a new blog called No Short Corners, with Sean O'Conner. They kicked it off yesterday. Check it out now.
SuperLiga
Official website
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Semifinals
Matches & Scores:
-Tue Jul 29
Houston 2-0 Pachuca - HD goals by Bobby Bowell & Corey Ashe. Click to continue reading...

Take note that the MLS game tonight, Columbus v Kansas City, is on ESPN, not ESPN2!
~and~
You have to be impressed by both Guadalajara Chivas and New England Revolution in this SuperLiga, but Guada has played both games on the road making them the strongest team so far. Click to continue reading...

So Ronaldinho is now a member of Milan. Will it help them? Will it help him? Beware the three-headed Brazilian attack: Pato, Kaka & Ron.
SuperLiga
Official match reports and video highlights etc.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Matchday 2 Group Stage Matches & Scores:
-Tue Jul 15
DC 2-3 Atlante - DCU goals by Grandpa Doe & Luciano Emilio. Click to continue reading...

I had an interesting conversation with Dave Lifton after Saturday's DC-Chivas game. Talking MLS, the topic of perspective came up -- specifically, the viewpoint of a club's dedicated fan versus that of a journalist, or the proverbial "neutral," and the like.
I am probably oversimplifying here, but in the interests of brevity, Dave described how the instability and uncertainty that loomed over MLS in the years following 9/11/01 helped inspire him to take more of a documentarian's approach to the small, brave, weird happening that was/is the latest stab at a successful soccer league in the United States of America. Click to continue reading...

July 6th's show is available now as an MP3 archive at RevolutionRecap.com and on iTunes.
The show featured Joyce Furia (Soccer New England) in studio and Jim Dow (RevsNet.com) and Frank Dell'Apa (Boston Globe) over the phone. Click to continue reading...

Tonight's Guests (July 6th):
Joyce Furia (in studio) -Soccer New England Photographer/Writer
Frank Dell'Apa - Boston Globe Writer
Jim Dow - RevsNet.com Writer Click to continue reading...