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In this week's Corner, we rate the Bundesliga relegation playoff where the 16th-place team plays the 3rd-place 2.Bundesliga club. Read More
In this week's Corner, we look at US National Team player Jermaine Jones's club Schalke 04 and their chances in the Bundesliga. Read More
The Bundesliga season started over the weekend, and short a homage to the old Soccer Made in
Germany show on public television, it's worth asking about that league's appeal in the United
States. In recent years, it's never been exactly high. The language barrier looms, even with the
connections to American players.
Chicago holds Robbie Rogers's MLS rights, but Rogers would prefer to play for a different club. We rate MLS's insistence on the reserve clause. Read More
In this week's Corner, we rate how Major League Soccer clubs value goalkeeping, a position uniquely identified with American soccer. Read More
The Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles Galaxy get the Corner treatment this week where we ask about an MLS turnaround. Read More
The Montreal Impact's hot start in 2013 is certainly a surprise, and we ask if clubs have already learned enough about their game to adjust. Read More
The New York Red Bulls seem to be going out of their way to create early season difficulties on the field. Read More
In this week's Corner, we compare Major League Soccer's schedule in the first week of the season in 2012 with 2013. Read More
Toronto and Columbus offer their fans different views on the Major League Soccer season and Portland is the latest MLS club with injury trouble. Read More
Wouldn't it be nice to get a semifinal with a clear winner on the scoreboard and on the field? DC United entered their second-leg with eventual finalists Houston feeling like a no-call in the opener stacked the series against them. It didn't help that Major League Soccer's head of officiating eventually agreed with DC's take.
One thing you can't say about Major League Soccer in 2012 is that the old conference disparity remains in place. The East finished a strong regular season over the weekend, finally stopping the Western dominance in this League. Was it the unbalanced schedule and the playoff tweaks from last season finally taking hold?
It's always interesting to see how a club's season really ends. For the Columbus Crew, it was playing defensively with time running out in Washington DC. In need of three points rather than one, for some reason Columbus looked like the team playing for the tie. They paid for it, giving up a stoppage time winner and exiting the playoffs while a chorus of United supporters let them know exactly what had happened.
If you had to pick a contending team that has yet to qualify for Major League Soccer's playoffs, it's questionable whether or not Houston is the best selection. The Dynamo might have already made their run for 2012, and what we're seeing now is a team with its best soccer in the rearview mirror. Currently 5th-place in the Eastern Conference where only leaders Sporting Kansas City have formally advanced to the playoffs and with only.
Major League Soccer hasn't been shy about considering anything short of free agency, and that includes regular tweaks to its playoff format. The equation they're trying to master is one that equals a meaningful playoff race involving multiple teams in late September and early October. What they've regularly gotten is teams still mathematically capable of making the playoffs over the last few weeks of the season and the occasional already eliminated team ruining someone else's.
By their own standards, Real Salt Lake isn't getting it done as we move into the final weeks of the
season. For one of the few Major League Soccer clubs to establish a style and challenge other teams
to overcome it, RSL is in trouble. What once worked is no longer as threatening. A club that has
had to put up with over a season's worth of commentary about their age, keeping a core group.
Major League Soccer is once again facing an interesting scenario courtesy of the referees. Do they
enforce the idea that refereeing decisions can't be criticized by coaches and club personnel even
in the face of evidence that the comments are warranted? Or is Week 24 the week where the League
decides it's time for a reality check?
In all fairness, it was the Western Conference that gave us the most dramatic result in Major
League Soccer's Week 22. That would be Seattle showing up big in front of an NFL-sized crowd at
home and shutting out Los Angeles by four goals. Yet that wasn't the most important result. The
shakeup at the top of the Eastern Conference takes that honor, with Houston and their win streak
moving to the top of the.
It's gotta be better than the SuperLiga, right? AS the CONCACAF Champions League kicks off tomorrow
for Major League Soccer's clubs, it's worth remembering the point of that quickly forgotten
tournament. The SuperLiga was intended to give an MLS audience home games that counted against
Mexican clubs.
Stoke City gives a realistic lesson in how a Premier League team can play its way out of relegation trouble. Read More
In this week's Corner, we rate the pressures of relegation in England's Premier League without going over 400 words. Read More
The latest North London derby went Tottenham's way, with Arsenal left with yet another question for the 2012-13 Premier League season. Read More
In this week's Corner, we rate the importance of England's FA Cup for the elite Premier League clubs focused on European success. Read More
In this week's Corner, we ask about Celtic's dual realities playing in the Champions League knockout stage and Scotland's Premier League. Read More
Everton and Aston Villa drew 3-3 over the weekend, with one point instead of three opening a gap between 5th and 4th in the Premier League table. Read More
In this week's corner, we look at Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert's take on the Premier League table and his club's chances. Read More
Do Arsenal have to act now to salvage their season, or do they have more time than their critics think? Read More
Is the Premier League threatening to open up in 2012-13? 16 rounds in, and Everton are a top four team. Manchester United have a six-point gap at the top of the table, but their run and gun offense and lax defending leave them vulnerable on goal difference to 2nd-place Manchester City. Yes, United won the latest Manchester derby, but there's the feeling that things could change.
If you pick the responses from certain English Premier League clubs, you get various takes on what
the summer transfer window is supposed to provide. For some, it's a rebuilding effort even if a
team is good enough to already be a competitor. For others, it's trying to figure out the damage
when offers are simply too good to pass on.
The Rest
FIFA's World Rankings are normally controversial, but do a couple of current examples point to the need to rethink the formula? Read More
In this week's Corner, with voting underway for the Class of 2013 we rate the likelihood of a new home for the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Read More
It's always interesting to see an elite team unable to do the basics. For Arsenal, that meant questionable defending in their loss to Manchester United. At Premier League level, that's what normally happens when you can fairly use a phrase like ‘questionable defending.' Arsenal – and everybody else in the EPL for that matter – lack the offensive threats to have a bad day against United and expect to come away with something.
Nothing sells newspapers like feigning outrage, so the response from our English friends to Liverpool's announcement that they'll be restructuring their stadium rather than building a new one is going as expected. After all, this is a team that's been flirting with a nice new home somewhere in the greater metropolitan era for longer than it would take to build a succession of several stadiums.
What counts as a big game for American soccer fans? Over the weekend, world soccer provided multiple opportunities to answer that question. Milan - Inter Milan, Real Madrid - Barcelona, Club America - Chivas.... All three easily qualify as big games, arguably bigger than the leagues where those clubs play.
Considering the scenario that played out with England's National Team and their captain John Terry, it's not surprising that he opted to end his international career early. What is surprising is that England seems stuck in a cycle of considerable disappointment. England is one of a handful of teams in world soccer that's always supposed to factor.
Balmoor Stadium on the northeast coast of Scotland has a listed capacity of 4,000 people with only
a thousand of those seated. The reported attendance for Peterhead - Rangers was 4485, close but not
enough to break the record set last January when Celtic showed up for a Cup game. That's nothing
new for the Old Firm, but it's certainly new when a lower division has an Old Firm club on the
schedule for an.
Depending on how seriously you focus on the European gossip, the summer of 2012 might seem like a
bit of a letdown in terms of player movement. Blame it on the European Championships and even the
Olympics, but so far we haven't seen the kind of moves that draw attention on both sides of the
Atlantic.
