Photo: Earl Gardner

Le Toux talks

It just won't stop.

As suggested by the 130 readers' comments posted on PSP in less then 24 hours since the Le Toux transfer news broke, if the sadness felt by Union fans at the news of Sebastien Le Toux's transfer to Vancouver wasn't enough, subsequent comments from Peter Nowak and Le Toux will, for many, see that sadness turn to anger.

This is what looks to be just any half-football/half-other sports (heavily football, they say) pitch in any neighborhood in the world, lacking all of the requisite quality for anything but a casual game. It is remarkable only in its unremarkability.

And then it got an umbrella.

I've written a number of times before about youth soccer referees not wanting to use their cards. Initially it seemed to be due to the age of players that I coached. But now that my older girls team is in high school, I haven't seen many more cards, even though I've seen plenty of fouls to warrant them from opponents AND my own players.

Soccer is unique in contrast to other sports. The clock does count down having a set time for how long a period lasts. That means to the extent of maybe 20 minutes for hockey to count down until the next period or 15 minutes for football. With soccer, however, the clock tends to go up instead of down as anything could happen in a soccer game.

Soccer is unique in contrast to other sports. The clock does count down having a set time for how long a period lasts. That means to the extent of maybe 20 minutes for hockey to count down until the next period or 15 minutes for football. With soccer, however, the clock tends to go up instead of down as anything could happen in a soccer game.

U.S. Men's National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann announced the 20-player roster for the annual January camp leading up to the games against Venezuela on Jan. 21 at the University of Phoenix Stadium (TICKETS) and Panama on Jan. 25 in Panama City.
ussoccer.com spoke with Klinsmann about his plans for the January camp and where this opportunity fits into the bigger picture of the development of the U.

After Tottenham's controversial defeat against Stoke City last Sunday, it has been reported that hundreds if not thousands of Tottenham supporters have been and continue to send obscene tweets to Sir Chris Hoy. It appears there seems to be a literacy problem among some of the Tottenham supporters.

The NCAA dropped a bombshell on non-revenue sports and released a proposal (which you read more about here.) which would reduce competitions by 10% and cut spring competitions. This would mean that Soccer players as well as other sports would only have a short season in the fall/winter and now games or practices again until August.

Dan thinks Colorado made a phenomenally bad decision based mostly on past performance while admitting this:

Steve Sampson and Thomas Rongen have won doubles in MLS.

I rest my case. Jeff Carlisle goes on to paint a picture of the dysfunctional working relationship between Smith and his superiors:

Smith went public with his displeasure in an October interview with The Denver Post but later tried to make peace with Bravo, realizing that he didn't want to leave the team he had spent three years putting together.

We continue our new series on the Free Beer Movement. It's called "Brews and Views" and we pose a question or topic to various prominent soccer persons and, well, they give us their view on it.
We've got loads of get people that have already responded to our call for essay submissions and each week we'll feature a unique perspective on the current topic/question at hand.

Two intrepid members of the Liverpool FC Foundation will soon be departing for India to send out a very important message to young girls in the city of Mumbai.
Rebecca Hughes and Jade Adekoya will be spreading the word about the Goals 4 Girls project which is an initiative aimed at raising awareness about important social issues, and increasing female participation in football and other sports.

Ian Ayre has rubbished a newspaper report claiming Principal Owner John Henry suggested Fenway Sports Group may have overpaid for Liverpool players.
The Reds Managing Director insists Henry's quote was not regarding the club's transfer business and was instead referring to baseball.
Ayre told LFC TV's Friday Night Live: "I have actually seen the transcript.

I started thinking about this question again in the wake of some recent comments by Dennis Bergkamp about what's going on at Arsenal. He stated his views about tactics, a need for a true goal scorer, and Patrick Vieira. Naturally, this led a few writers to wonder if Bergkamp would be a good future manager at Arsenal.

'Moneyball' can inspire Premier League success, insists Billy Beane

Billy Beane, the man behind the Moneyball phenomenon, has dismissed the notion that his principles cannot be adapted from baseball to other sports.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-10-11 11:44:01 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

The news that Wayne Rooney's father and uncle Richie were arrested today over allegations of a football betting scam has to have set off alarm bells at Old Trafford as well as the English FA.

The arrests were in relation to a game between Motherwell and Hearts in December last year in which Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings was arrested after allegedly getting himself sent off deliberately during the match.

Football Manager: Advanced Stats, Live Odds and Scouting+ - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Football Manager will be released on 21 October 20112 here's a look at how Miles Jacobson and co. can make the game even better for the millions of football fans who religiously play the game every year.

Crew Stadium, full...it can be done folks. (Getty Images)

Boy, folks sure are down on the Columbus Crew these days. Either it is due to their lack of form in the league at the moment, their injury list piling up like a 10-car pileup on the freeway, or it is just due to them being in Columbus.

Liverpool, along with Standard Chartered Bank, have launched a program for nurturing football talent in over 2000 children from around 80 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
There are over 650,000 students from the financially challenged section of the society in over a 1000 schools run by the BMC.

In the old times, goal celebrations were very boring natural and didn't have any art in them. If you watch Rivelino WC old famous goals, you notice that he used to run a lot, then when he does not know what else to do, he just stops. Well, even scoring a decisive goal in the WC final, the guy was running out of any ideas, that was Alessandro Altobelli in 1982.

Manchester United have signed two new lucrative commercial deals, including the announcement of logistics company DHL as their first training kit sponsor.

Yes you read that right. DHL will sponsor United's training kit in a four-year deal worth a reported £40 million. I am not aware of any other sports team in the world that has been able to sell sponsorship on the club's playing kit and training kit to different sponsors.

It's been a few months since Opta and MLS announced their partnership so I thought it would be a good time to take a look at how the partnership is doing. Opta is fantastic at leveraging Twitter so I thought examining the popularity of their different Twitter personas would be a good way to compare how much fans of different leagues engage with Opta.

Football is back. I should be excited. But I'm not. And that's unusual. The impending football season for me is like the unwanted return of the Genital Herpes which you thought you had shaken off, only to return when you least expect it. This really shouldn't be how I feel.

The Championship is a few days away and is swiftly followed by the return of the Premiership season.

MLS is in a constant psychological battle for relevance with and against the 'big four' (basket, football, base and hockey), and must consider all angles to growing the sport's popularity with the masses. Without question, all the sports must battle each other for the sports fan's attention because without relevance among sports fans, the bottom line is at risk.

As the fall approaches, players begin preparing for the upcoming soccer season. Pre-season training is a time to develop fitness, fine-tune technical skills and improve tactical abilities. It can be a physically demanding time of the player's year. Unfortunately, it is also a time where injuries can be a problem.

We all must find ways to entertain ourselves in the offseason. Some turn to other sports, pick up crochet, or run a footy academy in Iceland. Other's such as the ever entertaining Stuart Holden, turn to American soccer to fill their time. While working on his rehab in America, Stu took sometime to support his home league and attended the Philadelphia Union-Sporting Kansas City match.

Seattle Sounders fans are going to get hammered with trialists and rumors over the next month. The lead up to this Summer's window is going to be fast, furious and ideally fortunate. Adrian Hanauer has some cap room to play with, a DP slot available, and MLS has slightly higher respect than it did four years ago.

I've written about my various soccer (and other sports)-related travels both here on the blog and in other forums as well. I've also written about the dilemma that faces me as a native of Philadelphia who was living in DC when MLS started (without a Philadelphia team in the mix) and have been with DC United from the start.

Writing an article like this is comes with a bit of a disclaimer... Mainly because four out of five of these things I have on good authority that MLS is already to seeking to improve upon. Naturally, we all have our own lists of things MLS can do better so feel free to list them in the comments section below.

Back in 2009 my seatmates and I decided that the four of us would have five seats. We did this to take girlfriends/wives, but also with the knowledge that we could expose some friends to the game who had not appreciated it live and local. While none grew into season ticket holders, several now watch the matches on TV come to a few games a year and generally enjoy the sport.

Flop of the Season? Not from this angle, he's not. Images: Getty Image/Zimbio

Yes, since our methods of attracting votes redefined the political scene the world over, we have made it our business to keep a close eye on other sports media and their methods of gauging reader opinion. Not because we feel we can learn anything from them, obviously, but it's always good to keep abreast of what's going on outside our pinkly painted party pad.

Do you consider yourself a sports fan? Yes, I do.
Do you consider yourself a U.S. sports fan? Yes.
Do you like sports from other parts of the world? Yes, but I'm more inclined to watch if its played locally or if its something I can catch all the time so I can stay in front of it.

All Boys was formed by a group of youths in the Floresta neighborhood on the west side of Buenos Aires. Like many clubs of the era the boys chose to adopt an English name, going with the simple All Boys. The full name is Club Atlético All Boys (All Boys Athletic Club) and El Albo, as the team are known, do indeed play a number of other sports including basketball, volleyball, and rugby.

After giving everyone a few weeks to settle into the regular stride of the season, we've decided to have an introduce yourself session on the good ol' Orange Network known as Dynamo Theory. If you've been lurking and haven't posted any comments yet, now is the perfect time to share who you are with the rest of us.

Wisconsin high school soccer coaches will be allowed unlimited contact with players during the summer, after the WIAA membership voted Wednesday to grant the sport the same rights previously given to coaches in nine other sports.

The amendment to the WIAA the Rules of Eligibility was passed by a 183-117 margin at the organization's annual meeting in Stevens Point – two years ago, the same amendment was defeated by a 130-173 vote.

Back in 2008 I interviewed Michael Lewis (@RSLTribune) and James Edward (@DesNewsReal) about RSL, MLS, and what it was like to cover them. With all the changes in the world of RSL, I wanted to reprise that interview. Michael was kind enough to join me again. This time around, he's joined by Jeremy Horton (@RSL_Jeremy) who writes for Goal.

By Puck This article was initially going to be a Puck's Friday Happy Hour piece, but my editor thought it warranted a different day, as it was "important given the current labor situation surrounding other sports", and useful given that MLS is one of only two leagues remotely stable in this country as I write.

The United States Soccer Federation has revealed a new uniform and a new motto to go with it: "Indivisible." The single world slogan is the product of a "crowd sourcing" campaign, in which fans were encouraged to submit their ideas to team-sponsor Nike. Dubbed "Red All Over," the project created a lot of buzz and raised a big question: Why would the USSF want to replace the old motto, "Don't Tread on Me"?

The National Football League is currently in meltdown as the owners have locked out the players, the players are going to take these owners to court and the season starting on time / actually happening is in jeopardy. This is a situation where billionaires are having an argument with millionaires over how to distribute billions of dollars amongst them.

I can tell you a great deal about the Chicago Fire and how individual players perform but sometimes it's difficult to get an accurate snapshot for players on other teams. In addition less sources and media coverage existing for MLS players than other American sports and other soccer leagues, soccer has a very limited stat sheet.

Image by Downing Street via FlickrDavid Beckham, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, is ready to raise funds to help the victims of the tsunami tragedy that hit Japan.
"I will lend my support in any way possible," said Beckham, who was named to UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2005 and helped raise funds for the relief effort the last time a tsunami hit Asia.