Sure the El Clásico games are full of immense skill, but the constant match-ups in the league, Copa del Rey and Champions League have started to take the shine off the event. Familiarity can breed contempt. In contrast, circus performer Davide Zimmari can breed footballer dogs. The eccentric showman has re-injected some sense of spontaneity [.
It was only by the time Cristiano Ronaldo managed to score his second goal for the night, to make
it 2-0 for Real Madrid that I finally managed a sigh of relief. ‘This wasn't going to end up like
those matches' – I thought, recalling our slip-ups against Valencia and Getafe. There would be no
freakish, frantic comeback for the opponent and no moments of panic for our boys – just absolute
control of the match and further questions if we can manage a 3rd , 4th, 5th goal and so on.
I spent much of the journey home after the Blackburn game pondering what to write about the game. And given that I live about 80 miles north of the Emirates Stadium the journey takes quite a while a walk up Holloway Road (and it really is a literal "up" in case [...]
Chamberlain and Diaby receives national team call ups where as Miyaichi is ignored by AM Alex
Oxlade-Chamberlain will receive his a call up for the senior team after being left out of Stuart
Pearce's U-21 squad. Roy Hodgson will very soon announce his squad for the upcoming world cup
qualifier matches against Moldova and Ukraine.
Training session bust-ups were a key component of Mario Balotelli's time at Manchester City. But he hasn't blotted his AC Milan copybook just yet. His training ground wrestling match with French youngster M'Baye Niang was all in good humour. Balotelli formed a formidable tag-team with Kevin Constant before launching a surprise attack on Niang.
ليون 2 : 1 سبارتا براغ by kooralive There was no shortage of clubs naming some very young players in the starting line-ups for last night's round of Europa League games, but Lyon striker Bafetimbi Gomis took it too far. The France international whipped a baby's dummy as in a dummy that would ordinarily [.
Some people have called for some rotation in the Chelsea side and ahead of Juventus, RDM has given exactly that with the likes of Oscar, Mata and Ramires all left on the bench for this one.
The close season is traditionally a time where clubs jettison their weak players, replacing
them with footballers with the skill to take the club one step further, whether that be to qualify
or European competition or avoid another year's relegation struggle. With that in mind I thought it
would be interesting to see which clubs decided a wholesale change would be preferable to keeping
faith with the players who toiled their way through the 2011/2012 season.
Hello everyone! Welcome to BFZ's first ever live text. Honestly, we have no idea how this will
turn out but hey, we're here to try! Glad you're here to follow all the action from tonight's
game.
This page will auto-update whenever we get around to typing something that's worthy of a live
text.
Andre Villas-Boas After his rebuilding job was undermined by impatience at Chelsea, there was a
feeling that Spurs was a more natural fit for the Portuguese manager, but the problem with
following the media's darling is that any slip-ups will be criticised ferociously. There was
nothing criminal about losing to a Newcastle side that were [.
Today's practice was a closed session at the Timbers' Beaverton training facility and focused on mixing up line ups and seeing how different players fit into the squad. After the usual warm ups and games of keep away practice was closed, however, when the press were let back on to the pitch, the Timbers were in the middle of a full field, full sided game primarily featuring reserve players but with some of the starters taking part as well.
Fresh off their first win in a long time, the Portland Timbers remain at home this week to take
on Western Conference rival the Colorado Rapids in a two game, home and away series. While the
Timbers are still sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference table, last week's win has
offered them a gleam of hope that they don't have to stay down there.
While Jamaica's win over the United States garnered much of the headlines on Friday, there were
plenty of other intriguing World Cup qualifying match-ups that took place in CONCACAF.
The most signifcant was Canada's win over Panama at BMO Field in Toronto.
Sporting KC didn't allow New York to get a shot on goal, the 3rd time this season that Kansas City
has kept a team from getting a shot on goal, but KC still couldn't get all 3 points as an own goal
allowed New York to escape with a 1-1 draw in the first of 3 match ups between the two teams.
KC came out strong and in the 4th minute grabbed an early lead.
The New York Red Bulls went into Livestrong Sporting Park hoping to pull off an upset and grab
first place in the Eastern Conference back from Sporting Kansas City.
They fell short of that goal, but still came away with a result that keeps them very much in
position to potentially catching Sporting KC further down the road.
Yesterday was the 7th game between Sporting Kansas City and Toronto FC at BMO Field and yesterday's
game was extremely similar to the previous 6 match ups. Games that were for the most part dull and
lacking good finishing chances. For only the 4th time in the 7 games one of the two teams scored.
Not once have both teams scored in the same game, and there have been only 5 goals in the 7 games.
Just days after falling to the German club 3-0 in the group stage of the tournament, the United
States shocked Germany 1-0 on Saturday to win the U-20 World Cup in Tokyo, Japan. Kealia Ohai
scored her second goal of the tournament late in the first half, which proved to be the
game-winning goal.
After each match the contributors to New England Soccer Today will rate the performances of
the New England Revolution players who made an appearance on a 1 to 10 scale (1 horrendous, 5
average, 10 perfection). This week Sean Donahue and Ryan Lanigan contributed ratings for the New
England Revolution's 2-0 victory over the Columbus Crew.
There's a really good saying that when things are good, they are never as good as they may
appear, and on the other side of things when things are bad, they are never as bad as they appear
and that's one way to keep things balanced in the ups and downs of life and of [...]
Controversy seemed to have started to slip away from the Philadelphia Union in recent weeks,
excluding questions surrounding Freddy Adu and his ability to handle a benching. It was, however,
simply a calm before a storm.
The Philadelphia Union and Jorge Perlaza chose to mutually part ways yesterday, according to a
report by Philly.
There is still something exciting about opening up a fresh page in a brand new notebook and
starting to write. No matter how many times you may have messed up before, you can convince
yourself that this time around you will get it right.
I'm doing something a little different with this week's player ratings. Instead of adding my
own, I'll be using just my fellow editor's opinions. The unfortunate truth is that I'm in my last
week of classes at PSU and I just don't have the usual hour-hour and a half or so it takes me to
craft these articles what with all my looming projects coming up.
So, that match really happened. I had thought there might be some wild chance it was all just a
very odd dream, or perhaps nightmare. After all, we were subjected to the horrors of MLS scheduling
which pitted an absolutely drained roster for the Houston Dynamo thanks to International Call-Ups
and some kind of flu-like virus making it's rounds amongst the teams in the MIDDLE of the bloody
week.
Between the weird scheduling of the match on a Thursday night, the questionable officiating,
depleted rosters, and the rather languid play, last night's match between the Houston Dynamo and
Real Salt Lake took the "beautiful" out of the beautiful game. Until the final seconds of the
match, it appeared that the score would stay at 0-0 and the Dynamo would have to wait until
September 29th to finally pick up their first MLS home win since August 3rd, but then Macoumba
Kandji was fouled in the box and Colin Clark converted giving the Dynamo a 1-0 win and breaking
their 4 match streak of not winning an MLS match.
It has been almost a year since Timmy Chandler last played for the U.S. men's national team and
although he has turned down a number of recent call-ups due to injuries or fatigue, the talented
youngster insists he is still open to representing the United States in the near future.
Ups, da hat wohl jemand die Zusammenhänge nicht erkannt und genau deswegen könnte das jetzt
peinlich für die Bundesliga, die DFL und die Telekom werden. Und wenn wir ehrlich sind, für alle
anderen Trikotsponsoren der Vereine auch. Dabei wäre alles so einfach gewesen, wenn nur mal
irgendjemand rechtzeitig auf die Homepage der Deutschlandsstiftung Integration geguckt [.
The race for the playoff spots continues to heat up in Major League Soccer today, with a handful
of key match-ups headlining today's league action.
D.C. United has traveled to Canada, and will take on the Montreal Impact in a clash of teams
vying for fifth place in the East, and the playoff berth that goes with it.
At the end of the 2011 season, there was every reason to believe the Philadelphia Union were
embarking on a steady climb. Having gained valuable playoff experience, the young team would seek
to acquire a proven goal-scorer and build depth at center back before pushing deeper towards the
MLS Cup. Home field advantage would remain a strength - the team had only lost 4 of 32 regular
season games played across two years at PPL Park and Lincoln Financial Field.
With the exception of the March 10th loss against Sporting Kansas City, the Revs have not lost
any game this season by more than 1 goal. And I used to find a least a little solace in that fact.
But it's not really doing it for me anymore. Losses are losses and ours are really piling up
now.
The Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps renew acquaintances in the latest instlalment of
their Cascadia Derby, but more than bragging rights will be on the line when they meet today.
The Sounders and Whitecaps are currently tied on points with the Los Angeles Galaxy in the
Western Conference standings and three points today for either side would vault them into a strong
position heading into the final months of the regular season.
It is almost impossible to believe that come June 1, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers will be the fifth longest serving manager currently working in the Premier League! Rodgers will have been in the Anfield hot seat for one year but given the nature of the modern Premier League, he has overtaken 15 rivals in the [.
Two months into the new campaign, and we're in a position to assess how things are starting to shape up for the six teams either promoted from or relegated to the Championship. Let's begin with last season's champions Reading. Lanterne Rouge's side have recently been the primary subject of an excellent discussion post examining Premier League survival prospects on this very site.
It's been an exciting past few months for those of us who write for SB Nation as we've been
keeping quite a big secret under our hats. It shouldn't come as a surprise that our current design
is a bit dated, to say the least, and as of today we can officially unveil that this tired old
design won't be around for too much longer.
World Cup qualifying is set to get back into full swing on Friday and there should be plenty of
quality and drama as 66 teams will be in action in an attempt to further solidify their place in
Brazil 2014.
Europe will be the site for most of those matches, as UEFA's World Cup qualifying will begin
with 22 matches.
Well, well, well. And well. The 2012-13 CL Qualifying Round draw took place shortly ago and there
we weren't surprised by most of it at all. Any Kickettes fancy a reactionary debate over the group
stage set ups? Name and shame teams that will cake walk through to the next round? And which group
would [.
Flashback July 2007I am kind of busy with my day job commitments that I am not able to devote much
of my time on local football of late.
Which is why I thought it is not a bad idea to have those "BlastFromThePast" archival postings via
the blog's Facebook page to allow readers to reminisce some interesting entries from the past.
The Timbers held their first practice in Portland in more than a week today, returning from
their two game road trip against Toronto and New York. It was perfect training weather at the
team's Beaverton training facility as next year's designated player, Jose Adolfo Valencia, trained
with the Timbers for only the second time since joining the team and the first time since
undergoing surgery to repair the cartilage in his left knee.
Alex Olshansky with a statistical look at the quality of play in MLS. Is the league
in midseason form?
They played well ....
poorly despite .... because they are or are not in mid-season form.
We hear a variation of that quite frequently, especially in the context of the European summer
barnstorming tours or CONCACAF Champions League matches.
