This Wednesday marks the 14th game of the season for KC, and the final game against the Western
Conference. KC has already played 8 of the 9 teams in the West and will finalize that part of the
season with the trip back to the Pacific Northwest. KC close out the Western Conference playing the
Sounders at Century Link Field tomorrow.
There's a lot going on among the various Sounders teams. Here's a quick update on what's
happening with some of the less-covered squads.
Sounders Women - Despite not having the national team players, on Sunday the
Sounders beat the LA Strikers 4-0 The scoreline is not flattery, as they completely dominated every
aspect of the match.
The Portland Timbers look out of sync for most of the game and 2 subs due to injuries limit any
adjustments John Spencer could make. Portland once again loses on the road, this time 2-0 to an
expansion team.
First Half:
John Spencer kept the same line-up, except for the inclusion of Steven Smith for the injured
Mike Chabala, as he used last game.
Chivas USA certainly surprised a lot of people. The New York Red Bulls were coming off a midweek
game against the NASL's Montreal Impact in which they lost 1-0. Heavy legs were evident , however
what seemed to hurt the Red Bulls the most was the lack of sharpness.
Athletic Bilbao arrived in the Romanian capital of Bucharest for the Europa
League final last night, and in typical Los Leones fashion, there was no 'jet
lag swag' exhibited and they were kind and friendly to everyone. To be fair, it was
really only a four hour flight and it would not make any sense to throw a big fuss.
As I type this journal entry in the smallest of one room efficiencies in Highbury, London, the
time in the upper right corner reads 7:00 AM exactly. Local time just hit noon which places my
brain somewhere in the realm of insane, sleep-deprived lunatic, or, lazy traveler, as I'm only just
sitting up from bed as Coronation Street appears on ITV2.
U.S. players wait for their turn in a small-sided scrimmage
U.S. U-17 WNT head coach Albertin Montoya held his first training in Guatemala City on Saturday
afternoon as the squad stretched their legs for the first time in Central America. The USA will
have about a week of training before opening the 2012 CONCACAF U-17 Women's Championship on May 3
against the Bahamas (4 p.
Heather O'Reilly goes airborn to volley past Nicole Barnhart
Today was best described as "yuchy" in Chongqing as the U.S. team actually trained under
snowflakes. It wasn't sticking on the ground, but for part of the practice, it was in fact snowing
on a cold, dark and wet day in central China.
During the U.S. team's walk in the afternoon to shake out the legs and get some cool air in
order to help fend off the jet lag, there were some youngsters setting off firecrackers on the
street. The boys tried (and failed) to scare the U.S. players (not good on either their covertness
or fuse-lighting timing).
It seems that Pia Sundhage and the US Women's Team are still trying to figure out
a magic winning concoction against formidable Japan! Unfortunately, the Americans lost 1-0 to them
in the Algarve Cup yesterday- an annual highlight in the Women's football
calendar.
To watch the U.S. team at training this afternoon, you wouldn't have thought they had gotten off a
plane less than nine hours earlier. Lots of energy, lots of tackling, shooting and great goals in
the 4 v. 4 along with plenty of sliding around on the wet surface. Rachel Buehler channeled her
best Wayne Rooney to score a cracker of a goal to end the drill, sliding to rifle a shot into the
upper right corner.
It was reminiscent of our last win at Anfield. We played poorly and we still come out on top.
It's the kind of performance that pundits drool over when Manchester United wins this type of
matches. The ability to beat the odds and find that winner despite not being on top of their
game.
After a less than impressive showing in the 4th round of the FA Cup on Sunday the Arsenal host
the Toffees at Ashburton Grove tonight in one of a seemingly interminable series of "must win"
league fixtures. After two helpings of Yorkshire pudding the FA Cup will now allow us to sample
some jellied eels at Brisbane Road.
Uh oh, Franck Ribery doesn't look too impressed up there! Let's all pretend
that it's a major case of jet lag and Franck's failure to pick up the
David Luiz Book Of Hospitality. To be fair, it must be dreadful stuck in a
training camp where you're forced to sing Birthday songs to the President, train in the sweltering
heat and not get to fist pump on the streets or wherever you'd like!
The Christmas break is over. This can only mean one thing: it's now time to put down the
panettone and get back to calcio! The Serie A season resumed this weekend – and no
holiday hangovers here; there was no shortage of action!
Perhaps still recovering from jet-setting-induced jet lag, Milan and Juventus, the league's
joint leaders, both seemed to be struggling to get back into the swing of things with difficult
wins against Atalanta and Lecce, respectively, on Sunday.
BEM-VINDO aaao Selecao Bootcamp, a tradition we have on the Brazilian National Team.
There are only two ways to get by the next few days soldier on and take it like a
man (boring) or spice it up and go crazy, David Luiz style! Of course, everybody
prefers the second one, especially when they'd rather be at home doing gloriously fun things like
barbecuing on Anderson's front porch in a sarong (here's looking at you,
Fabio!
I am in Philadelphia tonight for Real Madrid's third and final pre-season game in the U.S. The
team has been training hard in California and they have flown 3,000 miles to a very warm
Philadelphia for tonight's game.
More than 50,000 tickets have been sold for this game and the parking lots are full of Real
Madrid fans with them all anticipating another convincing Real victory tonight.
[caption id="attachment_1461" align="aligncenter" width="610" caption="Goalscorer Silva seems to
agree with me in his lack of excitement..."][/caption]
I think I would have preferred if we lost this match.
Not only because it would have been fairer on our opponents, but because a win conceals the fact
that we had a pretty crap match against an inferior rival.
Well, this is even worse than against Argentina. At least we had jet-lag to blame for that, and
we scored a little goal, which went a long way to soothe our wounded pride. But this...
This was just silly. By the time the second goal came around, I couldn't even get angry, it was
all just so ridiculous.
El Tuca declaró después de la jornada 2, después de ganar el segundo partido del torneo y
cosechar 6 de 6: "El equipo no está en su mejor nivel, hay que seguir trabajando".
Que nadie se sorprenda con el resultado de ayer, que el primer aviso nos lo dieron contra
Queretaro (¿Qué pasó ayer?
Welcome to Selecao Bootcamp a Futbolita tradition on the Brazil National
Team! Following their 3-1 win over Denmark at the weekend, the Brazilians have arrived in
Washington DC to face the USA in a friendly tonight. It has been billed as a test for the upcoming
Olympics, and Jurgen Klinsmann hasn't shown signs of taking it lightly.
Monday saw the entire U10 expedition depart in the early hours of the morning to return home.
Danny and I had a free day to relax and recharge our batteries before meeting the U11 group that
was arriving at 7:15 pm. A labor strike in France delayed them for over an hour but the boys were
on the team bus at 9:00pm, ready to embark on our MIC Cup mission.
Just one of the most liked but fleeting points at present is slumber. Simply because lots of us
have operates that neglect the nature of time zones, our bodies undergo the battery, and our
overall body clocks transform awry. On account of this, we embarrassingly fall asleep whilst
talking to the boss or find ourselves shaving the lawn at dawn.
So, I know its a bit late, but I figured I'd get a short review of the season up (even though
its a season, one of many, that I would ultimately like to forget about)..
I guess it would be most appropriate to start from the beginning though in all honesty, I can
barely remember much from the first half of the season!
If off-season alterations surrounding the 2011 Premier Development League campaign for Baton
Rouge were not apparent before, this weekend saw both the squad and its supporters face them
properly. After two seasons in the Southeast Division of the Southern Conference, the club has been
returned to the Mid-South from which it began in 2007, playing principally Texas-based sides as
opposed to the Southeast's cadre of Florida teams.
This segment is a weekly recap of some of the more interesting, relevant, and entertaining
Revolution news as tweeted by members of the MLS world and, naturally, the Revs themselves.
This week, we have some pre and post game tweets from Shalrie Joseph, some airplane etiquette
with Zak Boggs and Darius Barnes, and some congrats to send out to the Alston family.
Another day, another friendly, another possibility for embarrassment.
[caption id="attachment_1446" align="aligncenter" width="412" caption="And we\'ve got posters and
everything, how exciting..."][/caption]
World Champions Spain will face Colombia today (Wednesday 9th of February at 21:30 CET) for the
first friendly of 2011 at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid.
Greetings this week from Singapore, just north of the equator!!! Okay, I'm not actually in
Singapore anymore. I'm in Los Angeles at 4 a.m. suffering from massive jet lag and since I don't
have any photos from Los Angeles yet, just arriving a few hours ago, and I do have photos from the
city that I just left, I decided to make this the Singapore Edition.
Heather O'Reilly serves in a ball-possession drill
The U.S. team moved up its training this morning to get an early jump on Thanksgiving preparations.
The team trained at 10 a.m. and went for about 70 minutes in relatively mild temperatures (see
O'Reilly in shorts above.
Next year is supposed to be a banner year for the Wizards with the biggest news being the opening
of the teams new stadium out at the Legends. Today season ticket holders got the chance to take a
look inside the stadium for the first time on a tour. And while that's big news in and of itself,
the biggest news came from comments made by Robb Heineman to season ticket holders.
