We're heading towards an international break for friendlies and World Cup qualifiers. A couple former KC players have been called up already for national team duty. Daneil Cyrus has been called up for some friendlies for Trinidad, Roger Espinoza has been called up for Honduras' upcoming World Cup qualifiers, while Eddie Johnson and Herculez Gomez have been called up for the USA's upcoming 5 friendlies.
Of the former Wizards called up to their national teams, only one, Jermaine Hue did not appear for his country this past week. Omar Bravo, Daneil Cyrus, Roger Espinoza, Herculez Gomez, Eddie Johnson, Kei Kamara and Yura Movsisyan all appeared for their national teams this past week. Here's the rest of this week's update.
We're heading into the international break and quite a few former Wizards are receiving call ups. Probably one of the most surprising of those call ups is that of Omar Bravo, who was recalled by the Mexican national team for their upcoming qualifiers against Honduras and the US. Bravo has had a solid season for Atlas that has earned him this recall to the national team.
U.S. Men's National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has called 23 players into training camp in Denver to prepare for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Costa Rica and Mexico. The U.S. will face Costa Rica at sold-out Dick's Sporting Goods Park on March 22 at 8 p.m. MT. The match will be broadcast live on ESPN, WatchESPN and UniMas.
In his debut for Spartak Moscow, Yura Movsisyan scored himself a hattrick, in Moscow's 3-1 in win their first game back from winter break. Check out the highlights below. Also, Milos Stojcev has a new club moving to Bosnia to play with Leotar. Here's the rest of this week's update.
Active without a club or unknown Doug DeMartin Birahim Diop Mauro Fuzetti Willy Guadarrama Kevin Hartman Aaron Hohlbein Will John Mike Jones Neal Kitson Jonathan Leathers Neven Markovic Rauwshan McKenzie Ofori Sarkodie Sam Scales Scott Sealy Ivan Trujillo
MLS Davy Arnaud - Montreal - Started and played 90 minutes in Montreal's 2-1 win over Portland.
Santos Laguna and Monterrey have scored goals in bunches throughout the CONCACAF Champions League tournament, but when the two Mexican powerhouse squared off in the first leg of the final on Wednesday, neither could find the net.
Santos and Monterrey played to a scoreless draw in Torreon in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League final series.
Santos Laguna and Monterrey will have all to play for in the second-leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final after the opener ended scoreless. Read More
Come with me. We're going to take off to a land of improbability for a few minutes as we look at a possibility of one of our current USMNT players returning to MLS to finish off his career. But not just any player, mind you, we're talking about Herculez Gomez, the current Seattle Sounders destroyer, and now Seattle fan enemy.
With a starting lineup that was clearly chosen to send a message Sigi Schmid's Seattle Sounders played a better game of soccer than their recent past. It was also quite different. The aggressive 4-1-4-1 put pressure higher than Seattle typically deploys. This created a few transitions further up field and led to some interesting attacks, but the Santos Laguna counter bypassing that midfield either over the top or with one touch 20 yard passes would create too many counters.
The Seattle Sounders are off to a winless first month of the Major League Soccer season, but they have a chance to give their season a much more positive vibe with a win against Mexican powerhouse Santos Laguna in their CONCACAF Champions League semifinal series, which kicks off tonight at CenturyLink Field (10pm, Fox Soccer Channel).
The Houston Dynamo went into last night's 2nd leg CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals tie against Santos Laguna at Estadio Corona with a 1-0 aggregate lead, but by the end of the night, the Dynamo gave up 3 unanswered goals and were booted from the competition.
Santos evened up the score 1-1 in the 23rd minute when Juan Pablo Rodriquez picked up the rebound goal after Tally Hall had blocked Rodriquez's penalty shot.
Santos Laguna continued its dominance of Major League Soccer teams in the CONCACAF Champions League with a 3-0 victory against the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday. The Mexican team advanced to the semifinals with a 3-1 aggregate victory and will face [...]
U.S. national team forward Herculez Gomez turned out to be correct. A week after saying Santos Laguna had no reason to panic after losing to the Dynamo 1-0 at at BBVA Compass Stadium, Gomez led Los Guerreros into the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League.
The Dynamo have a great defense, but left back Corey Ashe may very well be the most indispensable person on a talented back line.
Herculez Gomez made it three goals in the last two Liga MX matches when he opened the scoring account for Santos Laguna in their 2-1 win against Atlante. This magnificent free kick upped his season tally to eight goals in all competitions. (Watch starting at :26)
Meantime, Terrence Boyd continues to put himself in the right place at the right time, getting on the end of a cross for the first goal in the 2-2 draw for Rapid Vienna against Mattersburg.
Mac named to Team of the Week, voted Top Performer in fan vote for Week 8. Why Sheanon Williams' long throw-in is resulting in goals. Hernandez and Jordan named to USL PRO Team of the Week. More news.
Kleberson unveiling tonight in Horsham. The Union's history with the Crew. Basso, Brandt, and Ekra return to City Islanders. Gomez and Santos defeat Seattle. FIFA names goal-line technology for Confederations and World Cup. More.
Happy Wednesday, ladies and gentlemen. Some injured players are starting to feel better, Ben's getting on healthy players to do better, and there were lots of great GIFs produced by yesterday's Champions League game.
Happy Tuesday, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't get to yesterday's edition of Freedom Kicks, so there's a bit of post-game content from the Sporting KC game. Sorry if you'd already forgotten that it was a thing. The only unrelated thing on the D.C. United site is a plea to buy tickets.
Hey, our team has a functioning website again. Way to go, D.C. United! Even with their help, this daily links post is a bit tougher than I anticipated it would be. I estimate that this blog contains half of the D.C. United content on the internet on a daily basis, and that's an estimate that is generous to the rest of the internet.
In case you missed it, MLSsoccer.com senior editor Simon Borg decided that the kerfuffle over Klinsmann-gate (see yesterday's post) is all on the players. Apparently, we should all put our trust in Klinsmann because of his vast experience and not bother to challenge his reign or methods at all. If you were smart, you stopped reading at paragraph #4.
Herculez Gomez - the nemesis of MLS. The U.S. striker scored what proved to be the series-winning goal last night as Santos won 3-0 at home against Houtson in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal series. Gomez now has eight goals in the competition, all against MLS clubs.
Rosenborg BK have started their season just as well as anyone could have imagined. They have won all three of their league games, scored nine goals and are yet to concede.
It has been a good run of form for Rosenborg at the start of the new campaign, and Mix Diskerud will aim to make sure it continues this weekend.
It was just over a week ago that DaMarcus Beasley stepped into the cauldron that is Estadio Azteca and helped the U.S. Men's National Team secure a good result.
For Beasley, the jersey will change this weekend but the objective will remain the same.
Puebla are set to face off against Club America on Saturday and the match will provide Beasley another opportunity to shock the home team.
Sounder at Heart, Field Gulls, Lookout Landing, and now Sonics Rising. Seattle may not yet be a four sport city, but it is a four BLOG city. As far as I know, SR is the only blog on the network devoted to a team that isn't the member of a league.
Tuesday's 1-0 loss to Santos wasn't kind to the Sounders and their chances of moving on to the final.
Extensive quotes from John HAckworth on Freddy Adu, Kleberson, and Soumare. News from the USMNT ahead of Friday's World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica. More.
On Wednesday afternoon, after a closed practice, several players on the U.S. Men's National Team spoke to the media about, among other things, their thoughts on the Sporting News article from Tuesday.
Though many players did not comment on the situation, forward Herculez Gomez, midfielder Michael Bradley, and defender Geoff Cameron all spoke on the recent media fuss about the chemistry within the national team.
Today during the Bayern Munich vs Barcelona Champions League semifinal today, Don Garber got on Twitter and was ready to take questions from fans. During this though he received a question from former KC player and US national team forward Heruclez Gomez. Gomez asked how Kansas City still had his rights.
The one worry heading into the loan stint for the four Sporting KC players was how much time Jon Kempin would get in Orlando as the back up for Orlando's starting goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo. Today things changed a bit. Orlando City announced that Gallardo will miss 4-6 weeks with a knee injury. That should open up the window for Kempin to step in and start for Orlando in their season opener Sunday against Phoenix.
Let's be clear about one thing: Herculez Gomez is no one's reject.
The 30-year-old may have been a late-bloomer, at least when it came to opportunity, but he's now a fixture on the United States national team, one of the top players on one of CONCACAF's top teams and has a resume that includes leading Mexico in scoring and World Cup appearances.
The biggest news of the week is that Seattle is inquiring about looking into preliminary talks with advisory groups on the idea of making a bid for the 2024 Olympic Games. An idea I am FIRMLY behind. Yes, the Olympics are extremely expensive, and rarely (see: never) recoup their costs. But the event provides an opportunity for a city to do some truly great things, and it is a badge of honor that can never be rescinded.
Barcelona proves that it's not dead yet, Galatasary fans try to tunnel into a stadium, the Charlie Stillitano rants about the EPL team bias of English language UEFA broadcasts, and Leonardo proposes to Anna Billo on tv, it's time for your Friday goals:
Video: Kozak completes hat-trick as Lazio moves on
