Yesterday's announcement of a breakaway league from USL-1 had a great symbolic significance. It seems after many false starts and false hopes, outdoor soccer may finally be coming home to St Louis.

November 10th, 2009 could very well be remembered for future generations as the day Soccer came home.

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The city of Fort Mill, South Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte, is considering whether or not to extend their lease with a minor league baseball team. Jerry Reese, Charlotte real estate lawyer,...

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Jack while starring at SLU.
Props to midfielder Jack Jewsbury for his inclusion on Saint Louis University's Half-Century Team, as selected by an online vote. Jewsbury is the most recent alumni included on the team, leaving SLU one year later than Sunday's opponent Brad Davis of Houston. Check out the full team that includes former Wizards Matt McKeon and Mike Sorber and one-time Wizards draftee Kevin Kalish. Click to continue reading...

Last week we learned details of another soccer specific stadium plan headed by a group not associated with Jeff Cooper, a St Louis attorney who has MLS dreams.
Today we hear from Cooper regarding that groups proposal.
Courtesy of St Louis Today:

The developer of a $572 million Major League Soccer stadium and mixed-use center in Collinsville said a similar idea brought before Richmond Heights, Mo.

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Rendering of the proposed Richmond Heights Stadium.
For comparison.....
Proposed Collinsville Stadium

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So many stadiums....So few investors. File this under, interesting but only if Jeff Cooper or someone else has the cash to properly enter MLS.

From St Louis Today:
Update (2:10 p.m.)
While Gateway Real Estate Partners hopes to build a Major League Soccer stadium in Richmond Heights (see full story below), it's doing so without the explicit support of the group that's trying to bring an MLS franchise to St.

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The recent rash of MLS expansion has seemingly left St. Louis in its dust. Despite being an early favorite before Vancouver and Portland jumped to the head of the pack, Jeff Cooper's bid was deemed...

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2009 US Youth Soccer Region II Champions were crowned today following five days of playoff soccer. Missouri will be represented at Nationals by a pair of St Louis Scott Gallagher squads, the U14 Boys and the U15 Girls. The full list is provided below, along with summaries from games of interest.

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2009 US Youth Soccer Region II Champions were crowned today following five days of playoff soccer. Missouri will be represented at Nationals by a pair of St Louis Scott Gallagher squads, the U14 Boys and the U15 Girls. The full list is provided below, along with summaries from games of interest.

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Much has been said and written about St Louis's lack of a billionaire big money owner-investor for an MLS expansion side but it has almost been universally assumed that such a team would be well supported. Today we take a closer look at that through the eyes of Superliga.
When MLS/SUM made the decision to place a Superliga match in St Louis, regardless of what they may say officially, they probably wanted to gauge the response. Click to continue reading...

Man. It's hot. Like seriously, unbelievably hot. Maybe that's just because the press box isn't air conditioned. But if it feels like this up here, I can't even imagine what it must have felt like running around on the field today. We saw some good bits of soccer from both teams, an outstanding save from Kevin Hartman and a couple of near-misses from Wizards players. Click to continue reading...

First, Jack Jewsbury was delayed twice at KCI waiting for a plane from Colorado. Then, Atlas was delayed by about six hours due to a storm in Chicago. They were scheduled to arrive in St. Louis at around 10:45 last night. Well, they didn't get here until more like 4:45 a.m. Atlas was originally scheduled to train today at 10 a. Click to continue reading...

It looks as though the MLS dream for St. Louis is fading somewhat after a failure on the part of Jeff Cooper's Soccer United Marketing to meet the requirements of MLS for a deep pocketed investor. MLS having seen a Miami team fold due to the lack of such an investor may be rightfully reluctant to take on the risk of what would be viewed as a massive failure if a St Louis team folded. Click to continue reading...

Kevin Hartman and Herculez Gomez just wrapped-up interviews. Here is the list for the next few days, including a couple of interviews in St. Louis leading up to our SuperLiga match there next weekend.
Today--2:30 pm--Herculez Gomez weekly phone interview--La Gran D 1340 AM (Spanish)
Today--2:40 pm--Kevin Hartman phone interview--Sports Radio 810
Today--3:30--Herculez Gomez phone interview--Weekly segment on La Super X 1250 AM (Spanish)
Today--3:40--Matt Besler phone interview--Sports Radio 810
Wednesday--8:20 am--Jack Jewsbury in-studio radio interview--105. Click to continue reading...

Lance Watson in last year's 2-1 friendly victory over Atlas.
The match originally scheduled for Aug. 8 at D.C. United will now be played Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 6:30 p.m. CT at RFK Stadium. The game will still be broadcast live on Metro Sports.
For those interested in SuperLiga tickets for either the game June 21 in St. Click to continue reading...

I've received a few emails today asking why the SuperLiga game against Atlas is being played in St. Louis and not in Kansas City. I've been told that there are a few reasons why the Wizards will be playing this game on the opposite side of the state.
1. The obvious reason is that Community America Ballpark is unavailable due to the T-Bones already having a home game scheduled for that date. Click to continue reading...

Another MLSR rumor confirmed....
Courtesy of St Louis Today:
Talks have been going back and forth for a long time, but it looks as if the Kansas City Wizards will be playing a Superliga game in St. Louis at Hermann Stadium on June 21 (which is Father's Day). The Wizards can't use their minor-league ballpark home on that day because of a conflict, so they'd have to play at a high school-type stadium over there or try moving it somewhere else. Click to continue reading...

So this is a rumor that's been making the rounds for a while now. Rumor has been that the Wizards were planning on hosting one of their "home" SuperLiga games in St. Louis at Hermann Stadium on the SLU campus. Now there is confirmation of that rumor from a news source, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Tom Timmermann says that while the deal has not been finalized, it looks like it could be confirmed as early as tomorrow. Click to continue reading...

Robert R. Hermann Stadium May Host SuperLiga Match
According to several rumors circulating in other parts of the soccer blogosphere, St Louis is going to host a SuperLiga match at St Louis University's Robert R. Hermann Stadium. A match that was originally slated to be a Kansas City Wizards home match. Click to continue reading...

Yup, it's Mother's Day. Hope yours is a good one, whether you're celebrating someone or being celebrated yourself. The universe has been kind enough to send sun, a steady breeze, and cooler temperatures hopefully making relatively pain free outdoor work a possibility for the hordes of mothers in New Hampshire who will be out there tending gardens and planting, perhaps, Mother's Day flowers.

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... but that didn't dampen the spirits of the nearly 5,000 Breakers fans who trooped to Cambridge to see their Boston Blues defeat the St. Louis Athletica 2-0 in their home opener at Harvard Stadium. Here are the Week 3 WPS Power Rankings by Jo-Ryan Salazar. (I'll track these through the season on my WPS page.

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The Chicago Red Stars beat the St. Louis Athletica in front of @5,000 fans at their season opener. Lindsay Tarpley tallied the goal in the 78th minute for the Red Stars in this defensive battle.

Much as I hate the MatchTracker feature for the USWNT (only because I hate it that so few of their games are televised) .

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So last week, MLS announced teams' number 17 and 18 that will join MLS in the 2011 season. Those two teams are Portland and Vancouver, who ended up beating out St. Louis and Ottawa for those two spots. While both cities have current history with teams (Portland with the Timbers and Vancouver with the Whitecaps) that can date back in one form or another to the old NASL days, I'm disappointed in these two additions. Click to continue reading...

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It was certainly nice for the folks behind Budweiser to offer up some land for a St. Luis stadium yesterday. But perhaps it would be for the best if Anheuser-Busch avoided getting involved in soccer; they've got some very Doug Logan-era ideas that I'm not sure we're all prepared to deal with right now. Click to continue reading...

Would-be St. Louis expansion club investor/operator Jeff Cooper stumped for his bid, and MLS in general, on the BBC. I'm sure he's a nice guy and he certainly seems media-trained but the goatee coupled with his apparent ease with being filmed in such casual attire and in the courtyard of a local apartment complex do little to dispel the notion that his is a low-dough bid. Click to continue reading...

You have to give it to St Louis attorney Jeff Cooper having a flair for the dramatic.
In an 11th hour, "oh no you didn't" Cooper announces that he has teamed up America's largest brewing company to bring MLS to the Gateway City.
This no doubt puts added pressure on the Portland City Council to approve their plan because well, who doesn't like beer AND soccer? Click to continue reading...

Damn, talk about a 90th minute push toward goal. While the New Soccer Nation waits around for word from the Portland City Council, Anheuser-Busch has gotten in on Jeff Cooper's action in St. Louis but it might be too little late. They're essentially signing over the deed to a soccer park they own that has a small stadium. Click to continue reading...

Yes. It has come to this.
We have received two credible reports from two sources within US soccer media, one of which we present below that basically state that St Louis MLS's dream is dependent on Portland NOT getting a team.

I'm hearing Jeff Cooper believes that if Portland's vote goes through today, his MLS hopes are sunk and he is going to try to lure a USL-1 team to St Louis.

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In the latest story regarding the MLS expansion picture Don Garber and the MLS Board of Governors assert that they are not going to budge on the expansion fee, regardless of what some radio talk show hosts say.
Courtesy of USA Today:

It's not American Idol, but the Major League Soccer expansion race has become a months-long saga in which contenders are slowly but steadily eliminated.

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On the St Louis Dispatch, Tom Timmermann speaking with would be St Louis MLS investor/operator Jeff Cooper wrote the following blog entry:

Digg Yahoo!

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Phew - I feel like it's been a long time since I sat down with some good strong coffee and just caught up here. There's lots of news in the soccer world as the WPS season kick-off is just weeks away!  March 29th, to be exact.  (I should probably think about taking a day or two [...] Click to continue reading...

MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed that Miami will begin playing in 2010 according to Greg Lalas of Goal.com.
Garber states: "Barcelona and Miami, in partnership with Marcelo Claure, are focused on 2010," he said Wednesday at a press event in Columbus, Ohio. "If Miami gets a franchise, they'll be starting in the 2010 season. Click to continue reading...

I think I speak for all Soccer fans in MLS expansion cities when I express my anger concerning Major League Soccer's continued delays to finally give us the names of the final 2 cities that will enter the league in 2011. According to The Weekly Sport League and Franchise Report: 'The announcement for the next two MLS expansion teams might not be made until late March or April! Click to continue reading...

Miami and Portland in, St Louis Out.
That appears to be the picture painted by the following email from a reliable source within US soccer media who wishes to remain anonymous:

It may be the same source as you already have but I heard yesterday that Miami Barca is a done deal.

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