Everton skipper Phil Neville has urged LA Galaxy star Landon Donovan to seriously consider a
permanent switch to Goodison Park after thriving with the Toffees in two separate loan spells.
Donovan represented the blue half of Merseyside in the MLS off-seasons during 2010 and 2012 but
due to the short duration of each loan spell, he could only make a total of 17 appearances.
Week 11 was a gamble week for my Fantasy club that in the end did not pay off. A low 47 points
on the week just five over the week's average.
I gambled with my midfield yet again with brining in Brian Mullan who had two games on the week
and Dax McCarty. The Mullan gamble didn't work out as he got hurt and only gave out a single
point.
Joel Lindpere might not be a Designated Player like Thierry Henry or Rafa Marquez, but he
arguably means the most out of anybody to the potential success of the New York Red Bulls. That
makes the club's announcement Tuesday that he isn't going anywhere anytime soon all the more
notable.
With no national availability for the Colorado - Columbus wildcard game, Major League Soccer is
making it freely available online at 10pm ET. La Liga on ESPN Deportes: Espanyol - Real Betis at
2pm. On GolTV: Atletico Madrid - Bilbao at 4pm. Serie A on Fox Soccer Plus: Palermo - Lecce at
2:30pm.
By Jason Davis - WASHINGTON, DC (Oct 26, 2011) US Soccer Players -- A scan of Major League Soccer's
wildcard qualifiers reveals a collection of teams with significant problems. Over the course of the
season, by virtue of inconsistency, injury, or simply not being good enough to challenge the
League's best, New York, FC Dallas, Columbus and Colorado mostly bumbled their way into the
playoffs.
Angel's Goal Sealed the Deal the Last Time Philly Played a League Game at RBAI exchanged
three questions with Scott Kessler, editor of Philadelphia Union SBNation blog The Brotherly Game,
in advance of tonight's big game at Red Bull Arena. You can find my responses to his queries by
clicking here.
Week 29 filled all but one playoff slot, with the order in the Eastern Conference still to be
determined. After a multi-goal stoppage time finish to the DC - Chicago game, New York, Portland,
Chicago, and DC remain in contention for the final wildcard slot. Portland 0 - Houston 2 Home field
counted for very little for the timbers on Friday, shutout by Houston.
Real Salt Lake could be a wild card team this post season. (Getty Images)
It seems as each season goes in Major League Soccer, the wild card positions in the playoffs
seem to be the ones with the most to gain and the least to lose.
Just taking a gander at the teams who have won a MLS Cup over the last couple of seasons and it
was easy to figure out why the wildcard spots are so valuable these days.
Oh, what would early October be without running through playoff qualification possibilities?
With five teams having already booked their tickets to the MLS postseason, only three of the
eight spots remain. Clinched clubs include New York and Columbus from the East, RSL and Galaxy from
the West, and Dallas as a wildcard.
Andy Najar and D.C. United will battle FC Dallas this weekend. (Getty Images)
After a month and a half into the new season two clubs are still searching for their first win.
Both D.C. United and FC Dallas have the big zero in the first column in the standings, a number
neither of them want to see nor probably expected to still see at this point in the season.
I wanted to toss out my predictions for the playoffs (insert obligatory Jim Mora reference
here). Also, I'd like to see what other people think and what their predictions are. Since I
pretty much don't follow any other teams except for the Fire, I don't know a whole lot about these
teams outside of the basics, so a lot of my predictions are based off intuition.
Coping without a key player is nothing new for the New York Red Bulls, but they'll have to find
a way to do so again in order to maintain hopes of a deep playoff run.Â
Manager Hans Backe confirmed to reporters that Luke Rodgers won't be available for Wednesday
night's wildcard playoff game at FC Dallas as he deals with a knee injury.
With their win over LA tonight, the Houston Dynamo finalized the playoff seedings. With that we
have a better idea now of who the Wizards will face in the conference semifinals. Of the four wild
card teams, Dallas is the 7th seed, Colorado 8th, Columbus 9th, and New York 10th. KC will play the
highest of the remaining wildcard teams after the wild card round.
Tomorrow is the first of two games against Cascadian rivals the Vancouver Whitecaps. Each team
has been playing each other consistently since 2001 and both were elevated to MLS together this
year. Unfortunately for both sides it appears that the Cascadia Cup trophy is the last piece of
silverware within grasp for each team.
I bet many of the managers in English Premier League would like to have one wildcard in their
possession when the season begins. Unfortunately they don't, but the players of fantasy premier
league get, not only one but two wildcards to use. One you can use any time of the season and the
other during gameweeks 20 to 23.
Big gameweek for Fantasy Premier League managers. A massive double gameweek. The January wildcard
could be thrown around and managers could potentially field a squad of 11 double gameweek players
without taking a transfer points hit... Tempting! Aston Villa, Fulham, ... Continue reading →
By now you should know if you've qualified for the Fantasy Cup, Fantasy Premier League's massive
knockout-style tournament. If you were one of the top 2,097,152 scorers in the world last week, you
qualified.
For those of you new to the game, in addition to your weekly battle to climb the SBI league
table, you'll also have a head-to-head matchup against a random team every week until you lose.
With the Transfer Window coming to a close in less than a week, Premier League teams may look a bit
different next week than they do this week. We spoke about the Fantasy Premier League "Wildcard" on
opening weekend, and ... Continue reading →
First of all, this is our 1,000 post here at Never Captain Nicky Butt. So, that's pretty cool. We
started this blog as a place to discuss the Fantasy Premier League and offer our expertise after
many years playing the ... Continue reading →
While most of you are still watching Andres Iniesta's goal over and over again and not getting
tired of it, some of us have moved on to our number one online love for the season: No, not
Facebook. Fantasy Premier League football. For those of you who have been with us for years (and
some of you have played with me now for 6 or 7 seasons) you know that every year I complain about
certain "rule changes" (Emergency Captain!
But we had to return today to comment (briefly) on the fact that John Terry was cleared of
racially abusing Anton Ferdinand in a no-blame verdict. NOT GUILTY, ho.
I'm not going to get too far into it, but let's just say the case bordered on the farcical
before and during the trial, and this is exactly what was expected.
The biggest wildcard in these Euros? Has to be the Italians, no? Just a flat-out team
breakdown.
They come in having lost their two friendlies this year, to the States (1-0) and Russia (just
last week, 3-0) respectively. The Blues have two attackers that could be described as
"combustible," but more appropriately.
Freddy Adu spoke to Arch Bell of ESPN.com and, in a column published Monday, expressed an
interest in returning to Europe immediately.
The money quote from Adu is here: "It would be an amazing opportunity to be able to stay here at
Rayo [Vallecano]."
"I definitely miss playing in Europe," Adu continued, "I always said that when I went back to
MLS, I wanted stability, and that I wouldn't go back until I could play for a top-five league.
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill.-- When the Chicago Fire and Columbus Crew squared off on Saturday night it was
the Crew that had everything to play for and the Fire just playing out the string. You wouldn't
have known it based on how both teams came out though, as the Fire completed a strong finish to the
2011 season with another victory while the Crew stumbled their way into the post-season.
As the Seattle Sounders travel later today to Commerce City, CO to take on the Colorado Rapids
this has been set-up as a battle between the annually good and the suddenly Cup Champions. The
Rapids did not just sit on their hands during the off-season, but traded a few players away,
acquired several Seattle players through various mechanisms and even added a fringe EPL player in
Caleb Folan.
First the NFL employs a playoff ad campaign that mimics the viral video of fans celebrating Landon
Donovan's goal against Algeria during the group stage of the 2010 World Cup finals. Now, now . . .
somebody gives the same treatment to Nick Folk's game winning 32 yard field goal from this past
weekend's wildcard game that saw the New York Jets defeat the Indianapolis Colts.
It's not the usual time of the week for me to make my Premier League predictions, but with the
fixtures coming thick and fast I have no choice but to plough ahead. With Gameweek 19 just over we
are already faced with Gameweek 20, and Gameweek 21 is just around the corner. It means you'll be
seeing my predictions a lot more than usual, and it gives me a slight chance to make up some ground
on the league leader in my predictions league.
The Colorado Rapids, a member of the Western Conference based 600 miles due west of the westernmost
Eastern Conference club, will host the San Jose Earthquakes, another Western Conference club based
east of nothing but the the world's largest body of water, in a game that will be officially titled
the Major League Soccer Eastern Conference Final.
With 50 senators ready to give the thumbs up on reconciliation, are we about to see some change
actually happen? The complexity of the issues and the utter brokenness of the system leave me
tearing at my hair and honestly almost preferring near-random change to inaction. (Of course I
would not be saying that were Dubya still appearing to be in charge.
