STARTERS
Got this note yesterday from a great reader named Anthony who lives in Glasgow: Have you heard of any fans making the trip to Bratislava for the Nov 14 game? I haven't heard anything and US Soccer hasn't even released info about tickets, but I got a cheap flight from Edinburgh to Bratislava so I'm going for the weekend in hopes I can get a ticket there and looking to meet up w any other US fans before the game to march and sing to the stadium together. Click to continue reading...

Here are a few links to get your day started...
The 'Players Only' section of the Chicago Tribune did a fun little piece with Fire midfielders John Thorrington and Logan Pause the other day. Thorrington interviewed Pause for the entry, asking Logan all sorts of things in rapid-fire format. Click to continue reading...

Galaxy 1 Chicago Fire 0

The Galaxy wall (AP Photo)

Game story

Bonus quotes

Here's Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena on David Beckham's contribution, in what was one of his best games in a Galaxy shirt:

"David played a bunch of balls in tonight and our guys needed to be a little bit sharper and read where the ball was going in front off the goal.

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Donovan pushes L.A. into first in the West
Chicago Fire players were colliding with each other - Jon Busch and Wilman Conde (right), Mike Banner and Calen Carr. There were some open gaps within the Fire's defense, including leaving Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder Landon Donovan wide open a couple of times above the box. Click to continue reading...

Galaxy 1 Fire 0

The Galaxy took a deserved lead in the 42nd minute, a long Chris Klein pass up the right wing from his own half finding a sprinting Landon Donovan who left a sprawling Logan Pause in the dust before impudently chipping first-time over a helpless Jon Busch in the Fire net from 18 yards.

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The Los Angeles Galaxy takes on the Chicago Fire in a battle of second place teams on Friday, October 2 at 8PM. The game will be on ESPN2.

On paper this should be a tough, hard fought match between two teams that need to be peaking right now if they have hopes of going deep in the post-season.

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Time to revisit my projections of who will be protected and who will be left available. What's changed in the past month? For last month's review, click here.
A few days ago I posted about when players graduate from Generation Adidas status, which is highly relevant to this topic. Check out that post for further info. Click to continue reading...

MLS rosters are finally frozen. Here's a look at how much each team has changed since March.
Also worth checking is something that can shake up a roster without a personnel decision: the injury list.
CHICAGO
Hasn't changed much since the beginning of the season except for the departure of unhappy defender Bakary Soumare to Europe. Click to continue reading...

Another week in Major League Soccer, and yet more drama. The play-off picture is continuing to take shape, with one or two sides making a late run into the all-important wildcard spots. To top it off, the Red Bulls got a win!
Week 23 got going at Toyota Park last Wednesday, where LA Galaxy shrugged off the previous week's home defeat against Seattle to beat Chicago Fire. Click to continue reading...

Who will Peter Nowak and the Philadelphia Union take? Who will each team protect? I don't know, but I'll give it my best guess three months before everyone really starts focusing on it. You remember the rules, don't you? I'm assuming they'll stay the same as the past three years: 11 players can be protected, must protect three foreigners, GA players are exempt. Click to continue reading...

Chicago earns league-leading 6th road victory
A second-string defense and a couple of missing midfielders, and Major League Soccer's best road team still prevailed as the Chicago Fire defeated the Kansas City Wizards, 2-0, on Sunday at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
Chris Rolfe (pictured) and Mike Banner scored in the 13th and 89th minutes, respectively, as Chicago improved to 6-2-4 on the road and 9-4-8 overall. Click to continue reading...

A pair of Western Conference clashes highlight Major League Soccer's schedule in week 21 as the Seattle Sounders look to halt their road woes, while the Colorado Rapids look to keep Chivas USA's struggles going.

The best match of the weekend takes place on Sunday, with the Chicago Fire facing the Houston Dynamo.

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A pair of Western Conference clashes highlight Major League Soccer's schedule in week 21 as the Seattle Sounders look to halt their road woes, while the Colorado Rapids look to keep Chivas USA's struggles going.

The best match of the weekend takes place on Sunday, with the Chicago Fire facing the Houston Dynamo.

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Full defense is back as Chicago tries to climb back into 1st
Now that the CONCACAF Gold Cup is finished, the MLS contingent playing in the tournament is now back to the main day job.
Chicago Fire midfielder Logan Pause (pictured) is back from the U.S. Men's National Team and he and the Fire hope to win their second straight home game when they host Real Salt Lake at 7:30 p. Click to continue reading...

Hey everyone, hope your Thursday is going well. I caught up with the recently returned Gonzalo Segares and Logan Pause (both players had been with their national teams since the end of June for the Gold Cup) at yesterday's practice and did a little group interview with them. Check it out below...

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For those of you that haven't heard, Mexico absolutely demolished the U.S. today in the Gold Cup Final 5-0. Click on the link for ESPN's match recap (if you even want to read about the drubbing that took place at Giants Stadium that is...).Mexico, who scored all of their goals in the second half, was able to stop a long losing streak to the Americans in the States and end the 'Nats streak of two consecutive Gold Cups with the win.

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CLICK HERE for my Week 19 Examiner.com MLS Preview, which leads with the Chicago Fire-Seattle Sounders FC showdown. The match takes place at 2 p.m. (CST) Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle. The game is televised on ESPN.
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Fire adjust offensively to fill McBride's scoring void
The Chicago Fire are 1-for-1 so far without veteran forward Brian McBride, who is out several months with a right shoulder injury. Click to continue reading...

STARTERS
Well, that's not the way it was supposed to go: Oguchi Onyewu made his AC Milan debut last night coming on as a second half sub, then promptly slipped on a banana peel and got badly burned for a goal. Oof. It's all good from here on out though.
TEAM USA GOLD CUP
Tonight - Semifinal Match:
-Thu Jul 23
USA v Honduras
Venue: Soldier Field - Chicago IL
dN
Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America previews. Click to continue reading...

The Chicago Fire maintained third place in Examiner.com's MLS Power Rankings through Week 18. CLICK HERE to read more.
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I will likely be providing in-game tweets (CorrSports) from the U.S. Men's National Team's CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal match against Honduras on Thursday night at Soldier Field (6 p. Click to continue reading...

One of the many new faces in this Gold Cup squad is Chicago Fire midfielder Logan Pause. A member of the U-23 team in 2003-04, he is getting his first sniff with the full team during this tournament. Pause has partnered in central midfield with Kyle Beckerman in three matches, including the 2-1 quarterfinal victory against Panama. Click to continue reading...

The ratings for the U.S. Panama quarterfinal are in. Here are links to the ratings of Soccer365, Goal.com, Ives, and ESPN. As always, we give each source's average rating and list the ratings for each player in order lowest to highest. If you want to know what specific ratings a source gave, check out the source directly.

Click to continue reading...

FOXSports.com reported the match like this,
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Worn down and undermanned, the United States found a way to rally. Now the Americans remain in position to win their third straight CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Kenny Cooper converted a penalty kick in the 105th minute, giving the two-time defending champions a 2-1 victory over Panama and a semifinal berth against Honduras, which beat Canada 1-0 in the opener of Saturday's doubleheader.

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This was a testy match. Felipe Baloy went after Benito Archundia ala Drogba style with all the pushing and shoving after the match was over and should be suspended. The Panama team also brought out the lumber to the US and should have been called on a number of fouls.

Bob Bradley continued his experimentation with Jay Heaps, Logan Pause starting and bringing back Davy Arnaud.

Click to continue reading...

FOXSports.com reported the match like this,
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Worn down and undermanned, the United States found a way to rally. Now the Americans remain in position to win their third straight CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Kenny Cooper converted a penalty kick in the 105th minute, giving the two-time defending champions a 2-1 victory over Panama and a semifinal berth against Honduras, which beat Canada 1-0 in the opener of Saturday's doubleheader.

Click to continue reading...

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The U.S. national team will be looking to take a step closer to a third straight CONCACAF Gold Cup title today when it takes on Panama in the quarterfinals.

These teams have met in the past two Gold Cups, with the Americans winning the 2005 final via penalty kicks, and the 2007 quarterfinals in a tight 2-1 match.

Click to continue reading...

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The U.S. national team will be looking to take a step closer to a third straight CONCACAF Gold Cup title today when it takes on Panama in the quarterfinals.

These teams have met in the past two Gold Cups, with the Americans winning the 2005 final via penalty kicks, and the 2007 quarterfinals in a tight 2-1 match.

Click to continue reading...

The main stats for the U.S. Panama quarterfinal were posted yesterday. But during a discussion with a friend, I began wondering about whether either side had an advantage in height or weight. Here is what I found. I know that height and weight statistics are subject to gamesmanship among teams, but for the purposes of this post we will assume that a player's height and weight are accurately reported.

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With Charlie Davies departing for FC Sochaux this evening to complete a medical and sign his contract, here is the updated roster for Saturday's quarterfinal against Panama
GOALKEEPERS (2): Troy Perkins (IK Start), Luis Robles (FC Kaiserslautern)
DEFENDERS (5): Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Clarence Goodson (IK Start), Jay Heaps (New England Revolution), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew), Heath Pearce (Out of Contract)
MIDFIELDERS (8): Davy Arnaud (Kansas City Wizards), Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Colin Clark (Colorado Rapids), Sam Cronin (Toronto FC), Brad Evans (Seattle Sounders), Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo), Logan Pause (Chicago Fire), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew)
FORWARDS (3): Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo), Kenny Cooper (FC Dallas), Santino Quaranta (D. Click to continue reading...

There have been a lot of additions and departures with the current Gold Cup roster. It's all been pretty hard to follow. Here is the list of who is thought to be in camp for the next game (though there are more players who could be called in for the weekend):

Goalkeepers: Troy Perkins, Luis Robles, Jon Busch
Defenders: Heath Pearce, Clarence Goodson, Chad Marshall, Jimmy Conrad, Jay Heaps
Midfielders: Kyle Beckerman, Robbie Rogers, Logan Pause, Stuart Holden, Colin Clark, Brad Evans, Davy Arnaud, Sam Cronin
Forwards: Charlie Davies, Kenny Cooper, Brian Ching, Santino Quaranta

Click to continue reading...

This video represents soccer at it's finest. It's a simple game, you pass and you move. When you do that great plays like these will happen!

Pass and Move!!

Big shout to one of my high school campers and Online Soccer Academy players Will Crawford for sending me the link to this one.

Click to continue reading...

As you may have noticed, the experts weren't very consistent about supplying player ratings during the group stage. So while there was never enough data about a single match, I decided it was worthwhile to do group-stage reviews of all the ratings that players received. So, here are the group-stage ratings for each player organized by position.

Click to continue reading...

Can Chicago turn its 1-2-3 home record around?
• Preview: Rather than repeat all of my thoughts, CLICK HERE for the Chicago Fire-Columbus Crew section of my Week 17 MLS preview at Examiner.com.
• Game time: 7 p.m. Saturday at Toyota Park (televised on ESPN2)
• Fire injuries/absences: Defender Brandon Prideaux (out with hamstring strain); defender Gonzalo Segares (Costa Rica, Gold Cup); defender Logan Pause (U. Click to continue reading...

A few noteworthy topics from within the confines of the Chicago Fire and Chicago Red Stars:
• Gold Cup update: Chicago Fire midfielder Logan Pause got his second start for the U.S. Men's National Team during Wednesday's 2-0 victory over Honduras in the CONCACAF Gold Cup at RFK Stadium. Pause stayed in the game until Benny Feilhaber replaced him in the 64th minute. Click to continue reading...

Santino Quaranta has had a bumpy last several years. I'll assume all our readers are familiar with his trials and travails so I won't rehash them here. But tonight at his home stadium, Santino Quaranta achieved redemption with his first international goal in his first call up in over three years.

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This MontzTV interview with Logan Pause of the Chicago Fire was released in August of 2008. MontzTV is more of a beyond the glory type of show so even though the interview is old it is still relevant because it talks about how he got to where he is today. Logan has recently been called into the U.

Click to continue reading...