Jeter is breaking down the left flank, and he sends a beautiful cross to Johnny Damon.
Damon dribbles passed the defender and finds a wide open A-Rod!
A-Rod with a chipper to Matsui . . .
Matsui lines it up and hits a glancing head . . .
GOOOOOLLLLL MATSUI!

Click to continue reading...

The news that Chris Rolfe was leaving at the end of the season for Denmark came out a couple months ago, but Jack Bell over at the New York Times had a long article that touched on the topic yesterday:

Rolfe said that Aalborg, known as AaB, attempted to buy him from the league last summer, but M.

Click to continue reading...

First things first, the US MNT has added another friendly to the November schedule by announcing their stop in Slovakia four days before playing Denmark, which will make for a good pair of measuring stick matches against a couple of fellow World Cup qualifiers on European soil. Both Slavakia and Denmark finished atop their UEFA qualifying groups, so these matches should provide a good show of where we stand against quality competition several months removed from the Confederations Cup.

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Jack Bell creates a list of 10 most memorable games at Giants Stadium.

Some of the highlights.

Last summer's USA vs Mexico Gold Cup final turned out be an embarrassing 5-0 rout. David Beckham's New York introduction in 2007 resulted in a 5-4 pulsating shootout between the Galaxy and the Red Bulls.

Click to continue reading...

Check out this week's Physical Culture in the New York Times Style section; Jack Bell has co-opted it for the soccer agenda and has put together a piece (with a slideshow) featuring RBNY rookie Nick Zimmerman. The kid road tests a few boots from Under Armour, Concave, Joma, Lotto and Nomis. Click to continue reading...

It was a welcome announcement that MLS will not schedule matches during the group phase, semifinals and finals of the 2010 World Cup. That means the league will not play from Friday, June 11 through Friday, June 25. The WC round of 16 will be played from Saturday June 26 through Tuesday June 29.

Click to continue reading...

Book your flights now.
I swear to God, sometimes this is JUST TOO EASY.
(Yeah, yeah, I know it's with a "j". Lighten up, Herbert)
In other news, if it wasn't for the fact that the intrepid Jack Bell thought it was solid enough to mention, you'd have been tempted to laugh out loud at the "Beckham to Join Impact Bid" rumors which virtually every soccer blogger on the continent babbled on about for days after it first appeared. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
After yesterdays results things look like this for the USA to get in the World Cup: - Beat Honduras (Oct 10) or Beat or Tie Costa Rica (Oct 14). There are several other ways to get in too, but they are all slightly more complex. These 3 choices are straight up and doable. Click to continue reading...

UM02 May want to get ready to welcome Becks...
Could David Beckham teaming up with the ever vocal, Joey Saputo? Strange as that may sound according to at least one insider the two have spoken of the possibility.
Courtesy of Jack Bell's Goal Blog at the New York Times:

And according to a person with knowledge of Beckham's planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about jeopardizing any potential deal, Beckham and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in partnering with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact (the club now plays in United Soccer Leagues' First Division, one tier down from M.

Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Brazil & Ghana are the next two teams to have qualified for the World Cup.
dN
Edgar Castillo of UANL Tigres got his clearance from FIFA on Friday to swap from the Mexican national team to the USA.
TEAM USA
Official Team Blog
dN
World Cup Qualifying Match & Score:
-Sat Sep 5
USA 2-1 El Salvador - USA goals by Clint Dempsey & Jozy Altidore. Click to continue reading...

Jack Bell - what a card.

From its inception, M.L.S. has taken the Open Cup seriously and been a willing participant.

Can't wait to meet up with you to try some of what you've got.
Peace,
FS
Edit: Meanwhile, PI has a more sober take. Click to continue reading...

Take a good look at that crest ladies and gentleman. We all remember it fondly as this was the most famous name in all of football during the era of the North American Soccer League (NASL). We remember the movie about the history of the New York Cosmos and how popular they were once famed Brazilian International Striker Pele came to these shores and created a major buzz over in Downing Stadium at Randalls Island (Which was torn down and rebuilt as Icahn Stadium), Hofstra University, the first Yankee Stadium and finally calling Giants Stadium home at the Meadowlands in the late 70's thru the mid 80's.

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We all know that the sister league to Major League Soccer is for sale. Nike who owns a majority in the United Soccer Leagues has put up their stake in the league up for sale. One group that won't be buying however is MLS.

"We recently evaluated the opportunity to purchase the U.

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This should probably be filed under "things we already knew", but via Jack Bell and the New York Time Goal blog comes confirmation that Major League Soccer isn't interested in buying the United...

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No need for a bunch of my analysis blather on this one. It's all for fun, so let's just head straight to the reading room:- The updated MLS match roster- Everton match roster- MLSNet match notes- Salt Lake Trib match preview- The Edge: compare the sides- MLS has toyed with formats- S365's Pat Johnston checks out Rio Tinto- Jack Bell's Q&A with Freddie Ljungberg- Davy Arnaud's magic carpet ride- Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Simply put, it's a 3 game tournament, not 1 or 2. With that crazy win and Italy loss we get to see our USA team live another day in South Africa. 2 more days actually. The Semifinal round, and then a Final or 3rd place game! How cool is this. Who bet big money on this happening? Click to continue reading...

Reports out of New York indicate that Philadelphia Union may make a play former Colorado Rapids Goalkeeper.
Courtesy of Jack Bell on the Goal blog over at the New York Times.

Nowak is expected to have control of player personnel decisions in Philadelphia and his first signing could be a goalkeeper, Bouna Coundoul, a native of Senegal who played his high school ball in New York.

Click to continue reading...

With most of the Euro-seasons wrapping up, I've decided AFT will now come a bit more frequently, but with shorter reading lists. Let's face it, 12-14 items is not a "few" anymore...#1 - I'm sure you already know Piotr Nowak is set to coach Philly Union, but Jack Bell lets on that his first signing could be free agent Senegal keeper Bouna Couboul, formerly of the Rapids. Click to continue reading...

I hope the view from your back yard this morning was as nice as mine:
As fate would have it, I find myself on the Outer Banks of North Carolina this week, which is not just one of my favorite places on Earth but is also, not coincidentally, the place which engendered a now-infamous Jack Bell/New York Times article which quoted me by name (yeah, sure, I hate the NYT as much as any thinking American but on the other hand when they print your name, well, they're just one hell of a newspaper, aren't they? Click to continue reading...

CNBC has an interesting post by their "Sports Business Reporter" regarding the proposed "Lingerie Football League" which, while it's certainly worth noting for those among you who have an interest in seeing comely young ladies smashing into each other while wearing their unmentionables - and let he who is without sin among us cast the first stone - there really wouldn't be much of an excuse to mention it on BigSoccer except for this:
THE WRITER SAYS THAT AMONG THE POTENTIAL OWNERS are two MLS team investor/operators. Click to continue reading...

New FATBack is up. If the only thing you want to hear is a completely unprovoked and unfair attack on Steven Goff and Ives Galarcep's commenters, go ahead and skip to the end. You can also subscribe on iTunes, even though we're not in fact particularly tuneful.
This week, the Steven Cohen affair hit the mainstream, in Scott Wolf's really, really silly article. Click to continue reading...

The Red Bulls gathered at the ESPNZone in Times Square for their second annual Iron Chef competition. As is the tradition, Red Bull players are put in teams with an ESPNZone Chef and are tasked to create a healthy dish to present to a panel of five judges. This years judges included voice of the Red Bulls, Steve Cangialosi, New York Times writer Jack Bell, CW 11 sports anchor Lolita Lopez, La Prensa Sports Editor Mario Concha, and Cooking Light foor critic David Bonom.

Click to continue reading...

That's right folks, as you already saw, his "Be Champions" sign got some major props at the beginning of the latest Special1TV episode. Now Jack Bell of the New York Times is giving him shoutouts. We'll make sure to post some pictures of the t-shirt once Mike dons it for an upcoming match. I have no doubt it will look great in the Cauldron. Click to continue reading...

Claudio Rainieri was nicknamed 'the tinkerman' by the London media because of the number of changes he made to his Chelsea team while he was at the helm.
Juan Carlos Osorio of the New York Red Bulls has a similar reputation, and defended his style to the New York Times' Jack Bell, based on their recent poor form. Click to continue reading...

So Jack Bell got Jovan Kirovski to make some Champions League predictions based on the fact the only American player to win a European Champions League winner's medal, when he played for Borussia Dortmund in 1997.
Considering how much time he spent on the field throughout his European adventure, he's qualified to predict Champions League matches like I am qualified to race in NASCAR. Click to continue reading...

In an conference with mainstream media, as reported by Jack Bell at the NY Times the MLS Commissioner had this to say:

"Fans want to see stars. They want more games on TV and they want an increased quality of play," he said Thursday in a meeting with editors and reporters from the Associated Press Sports Editors conference.

Click to continue reading...

If your a KC Wizards fan you can... Other clubs you're next.
Remember back on March 13 when we posted the following email?

Hey guys, in the next few days we will be launching a Wizards-themed Firefox browser. This way, fans will be able to access Wizards information whether they're on our website or not.

Click to continue reading...

In an interview with the New York Time's Jack Bell, executive VP and general manager of Fox Sports International David Sternberg said that Fox Soccer Channel will have high definition programming by the end of 2009. "People are very keen to have FSC in HD and that's perfectly understandable," Sternberg said. Click to continue reading...

LA coach Bruce Arena: "In the last five years of this league the L.A. Galaxy have the least amount of points of any team." See Nick Green's article in the Los Angeles Galaxy section.
~and~
Contributing more fuel to my theory that soccer is the Sport Of The Internet in America, Jack Bell of the New York Times sites this stat in his Extra Time column today: "According to an analysis of more than 100 million blogs, message boards, and postings on social Web sites performed with Zeta Interactive's RelevantNoise software technology, MLS was third worldwide in the total volume of soccer posts, at 16 percent. Click to continue reading...

To answer Jack Bell's question in this article from the New York Times, YES YES YES!!! Absolutely MLS should sign Ronaldo, he is still a huge star, is still only 31 years old, and when healthy is still one of best forwards in the world and most exciting players to watch. Granted, there are a lot of unanswered questions that Jack Bell raises in the article, but MLS must take this gamble if he is even willing to consider coming to the league. Click to continue reading...

Here is a link to an article written in the New York Times about how the New England Revolution and Chivas USA were knocked out of the CONCACAF Champions League at the preliminary round stage and they won't make the final 16 of the competition. At the end of the article the writer Jack Bell asks questions about whether the MLS teams are playing too many games, or whether the other clubs were better then they were originally given credit for. Click to continue reading...

The USA Women got revenge on Brazil, and their own former head coach Greg Ryan for that matter, by returning to China one year after their World Cup semifinal meltdown and winning the Olympic Gold medal 1-0 in Extra Time. Fantastic win! See Olympic Soccer Scoreboard section for more.
~and~
Bruce Arena on why he hired Dave Sarachan as his assistant coach in LA: "I realized that if I was going to take on this challenge I'd need to have a second-in-command who, when I get assassinated, could take over right away. Click to continue reading...

Here is Jack Bell's article from the New York Times that reviews each player's performance in the game with a rating scale of 1-10, which is commonly done in soccer. To begin, I believe that Jack's ratings vary a bit too much. Its usually pretty rare that players on the same team get a score of 3 and also 8. Click to continue reading...

A few week's ago at an RBNY match I had a convo in the stands with the guy next to me about some hypothetical trades related to some of the current transfer rumors. The question was raised as to who would be a bigger loss for the team if they were to move on: Jeff Parke or Seth Stammler.
Without going into details of the seemingly endless beer-fueled debate, it was decided that while Jeff Parke is the heart of the clubs flawed defense and an all-around bad-ass it's Stammler and his versatility that would hurt the most. Click to continue reading...

I thought I'd share a few interesting links, one is the latest column from Brian Glanville, the famous English journalist who has been covering the game it seems like since the first time England played an international match.
Another is a recent interview published in the New York Times that contains an interview that Jack Bell did with Samuel Eto'o where he is pretty candid on some recent issues. Click to continue reading...