It looks like the Los Angeles Galaxy's best chance for silverware in '09 has come and gone, and as expected, the Gals have walked away with nothing. In last night's PPC final, Suwon Samsung Bluewings beat them in penalties, after the two tied after 90 minutes.
I managed to most of the match, and it certainly wasn't very pretty. Click to continue reading...

The Los Angeles Galaxy Football club has become the beating doll of the English and Italian media over the past month. A media who knows very little of football in the United States and even less of football in Asia, unless its throngs of Chinese watching Manchester United via Rupert Murdoch's satellite systems. Click to continue reading...

From what I read in yesterday's article from a local Guyanese news source, only two trialists have been asked to return to Florida this week (with Gregory Richardson being one of them). I would assume this means that Darren Kenton, Michael McGlinchey, Pablo Salinas Manacho, and any others weren't up to snuff. Click to continue reading...

The word "prestigious" doesn't exactly come to mind when I think about the Pan Pacific Championship, but since it involves MLS, I figured I should pay some attention to it.
This year's representative from Major League Soccer is the...Los Angeles Galaxy? I'm confused on this one as well. Click to continue reading...

God bless Tony Sanneh. He's still taller than Gooch wearing platform shoes standing atop a pile of Landon's possibly-fading European dreams and he still wants to play despite the fact that he is aged (for a footballer at least). But you guys gotta help me out with something here: does he have one of those hang-down, handlebar mustaches or are those jowl lines? Click to continue reading...

(Summary is not available.) Click to continue reading...

Before we get to the video we'd like to express apologies for being slow as of late. In the early morning hours of Jan 5th at 6:20 AM an editor who was a writer and key member of MLSR was involved in a fatal car accident. We hope to be back to normal in the next week or so.
As expected the 2009 Pan Pacific Championship has been announced. Click to continue reading...

So MLS had a good idea once. Really and truly a good idea for a tourney between teams around the Pacific Rim. A little one weekend thing with just two games for each of the four participants. The Pan-Pacific Championship had two MLS clubs in it first year. One an actual champion, the [...] Click to continue reading...

Recently in a Seattle Times comments discussion the question of how good MLS is and why players don't seem to want to come here to the USA in their prime. Simply, it isn't just about money, but also about the overall quality of the league. Currently, it is difficult to rank MLS in comparison to other leagues [. Click to continue reading...

You have likely seen the announcement that MLS, SoccerUnitedMarketing and ESPN sold the international rights for MLS to MP & SILVA for "Eight Figures." I'm going to assume that they aren't counting pennies and that would mean that the league gets an extra 10 Million+ dollars. In essence the new deal is like [. Click to continue reading...

MP and Silva Were a Key Player In A Juventus Tour of China
More information about the landmark TV rights deal MLS struck with MP & Silva, a company which distributes English Premier League and Italian Serie-A matches continues to emerge. As we have always maintained that the Pan Pacific Championship was not going to go away, it looks increasingly secure. Click to continue reading...

MLS has struck an international TV rights deal with a MP & Silva, a firm who counts among its clients the Barclay's Premier League, ESPN, Fox, the Netherland's RTL, Japan's Nippon Televison, Korea's KBS, and SuperSport South Africa.
Courtesy of the Sports Business Journal:

International sports media company, MP & Silva, signed a long-term, broad partnership with Major League Soccer (MLS), North America's top-flight professional soccer league.

Click to continue reading...

So says Sunil Gulati's Australian counterpart, Ben Buckley, Chief Executive of Football Federation Australia. Buckley is heading to a meeting of football top bosses at Stanford Bridge which US officials are not surprisingly absent from.
Here is an excerpt from the story:

"Buckley, meanwhile, has hosed down suggestions the Hawaii-based Pan-Pacific Championship - which involved Sydney FC early this year - has been scrapped after just one tournament.

Click to continue reading...

File this story under: "Beckham-mania Takes a Turn For The Worst in The Aloha State...""
This comes to us from CNN:
HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- It started with a generous gesture by David Beckham, who handed over his game-used soccer jersey to two young boys after a game at Aloha Stadium. Click to continue reading...

Speaking on BBC's special 4-Hour World Football Phone In (3hr 13mins in), last night, Aidan Ormond, their Australia-Asia correspondent speaking with Bobby Gould in New Zealand stated that discussions are underway with MLS to expand the Pan Pacific Championship tournament next year to include Korean K-League and New Zealand Football Championship clubs in addition to Japan's J-League and Australia's A-League. Click to continue reading...

Thought the Pan Pacific Championship was all about the footy?
Well, maybe, but its also a good excuse to go surfing, as Houston Dynamo striker, Brian Ching demonstrated. I guess those surfing skills helped the Dynamo's ball handling skills as they downed a pretty tough CSD Municipal 3-1 last night in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Click to continue reading...

While not an instant hit with everyone, the Pan Pacific Championship held in late February in Hawaii brought in an estimated $8.4 Million to the local economy according to this report.
This would seem to suggest that the talk of other cities, countries bidding on the tourney may have some weight. Click to continue reading...

So the inaugural Pan Pacific Championship is officially in the books. I must admit. I didn't watch a single game. Why, you ask? Well first off, because I don't have ESPN Classics. Secondly, being an east coaster, I just didn't feel like staying up that late to watch some preseason friendlies, because I'm just not [. Click to continue reading...

On a night when the LA Galaxy despite a herculean effort from one David Beckham managed to embarrass themselves yet again and legitimately call into question the standard of play and development in the United States, the reigning league champion Houston Dynamo did to Sydney FC exactly what the Aussie club had done to the Galaxy a few months ago: humiliate them in the first half and in the process rescue some measure of pride for an embattled league.

Click to continue reading...

On a night when the LA Galaxy despite a herculean effort from one David Beckham managed to embarrass themselves yet again and legitimately call into question the standard of play and development in the United States, the reigning league champion Houston Dynamo did to Sydney FC exactly what the Aussie club had done to the Galaxy a few months ago: humiliate them in the first half and in the process rescue some measure of pride for an embattled league.

Click to continue reading...

Rating: 5 (Very good)
Great news for MLS and the Pan Pacific Championship. Onkyo, Japanese makers of fine home entertainment system products will be a sponsor of the Pan Pacific Championship.
Other sponsors of the February event in Honolulu, Hawaii, are Japan Air Lines, Hilton Hotels, Yamazaki-Nabisco and MLJ, an international communications company. Click to continue reading...

According to soccer insider Glenn Davis, the upcoming Pan Pacific Championship tournament which takes place next month in Hawaii will be broadcast nationwide on ESPN Classic. We believe this is an excellent move by ESPN in showing their commitment to the game.

Click to continue reading...